Affection

(Paperback)

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Shortlisted for the National Year of Reading 2012 Award
January 1900, and Australia's tropical north just got a little hotter. An outbreak of plague is suspected, and the Queensland Government sends Dr Alfred Jefferis turner - small, refined and immaculately dressed - to assess the situation. turner, armed with a microscope, a butterfly net and his lovelorn yet devout colleague, Dr Linford Row, is met with incredulity, not least by local councillors who insist it's only typhoid. Fifty-two possible plague-carriers - including two prominent MPs - are isolated in a dilapidated quarantine station on Magnetic Island. Meanwhile, in town, the sewers overflow, the streets choke with rubbish; and still no-one wants to listen. When Dr Row delivers a letter from one of the quarantined men to his hauntingly beautiful wife, he ensnares both himself and the eccentric Dr turner in a hotbed of small-town scandal and fear. Written with wit and wonder, Affection uncovers a unique period in Australian history. A novel based on a true story of shonky politics, courageous medicos, and humidity, it's also a mystery of heart and mind.

Author Bio

Ian Townsend is a journalist who worked for many year with ABC Radio National. He has won four national Eureka Prizes for science and medical journalism, and an Australian Human Rights Award for journalism. His first novel, Affection, based on the 1900 plague outbreak, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, the Colin Roderick Award, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the National Year of Reading, and was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC award. His second novel, The Devil's Eye, was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award. He lives in Brisbane with his wife, Kirsten MacGregor, and their three daughters.