Coming Rain

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Description

At only 11 years of age Lew was given an apprenticeship to hard-man shearer Painter Hayes. The beginning of his new life meant one less mouth for his abandoned mother to feed, but it also meant he would never see her again. But Lew's a grown man now. And with this latest job, shearing for John Drysdale and his daughter Clara, everything will change. In lucid, rippling prose Stephen Daisley speaks of how things work, and why; of the profound satisfaction in hard work done with care; of love and friendship and the damange that both contain.

Reviews

'One of the finest debut novels I have read. Indeed it's one of the best novels I have read in recent years.' Stephen Romei, Australian on Traitor 'The minutiae of the woolshed and animal behaviour are brought to life with skill and affection.' Readings '[Daisley's] evocative prose nails the rural zeitgeist and the mystery of mateship.' Qantas The Australian Way 'This is a novel to make you think, and wonder about a world that few of us will ever know.' ANZ LitLovers 'This is a challenging and brave book...[Daisley] writes with a maturity and insight wrought of experience. His writing is at once cruel and gentle, graphically violent, including to animals, yet tender and beautiful.' Sunday Star Times 'Coming Rain shimmers with dusty red heat...Tune in to the distinctive rhythm of the prose and you'll enjoy the rich, subtle rewards of a really good book.' New Zealand Listener 'In Coming Rain this late beginner continues to make his distinguished, solitary way, not least in reclaiming the rural societies of a half century ago, rendered so vividly that they seem keenly of the present, rather than past curiosities.' Australian 'There are moments of aching tenderness and heroism that will enrapture readers to the very end. Highly recommended.' Writing WA 'Some of [Daisley's] most vivid writing. Here the minutiae of farm life are rendered with respect and sympathy...Moving and brilliant.' Australian Book Review 'Powerful masculine prose, brutal truths and unflinching truthfulness make this a novel that is as unsettling as it is evocative.' New Zealand Herald 'Stephen Daisley has absorbed the Western Australian landscape and describes it evocatively...[His] writing style reminds me of Henry Lawson's. Its short, sharp sentences and chapters, raw language and dialogue define the characters and the Outback in a grimly realistic but deeply humane way.' Good Reading 'Stephen Daisley writes with the potent economy of a short-story writer, and he triumphs with this visceral account that will linger in your mind long after the last page.' North and South '[Coming Rain] has lingered in my mind all year, not least because one of the main characters is a dingo.' Australian, Best Books of 2015 'I consider it a masterpiece...Coming Rain deserves its accolades.' NZ Herald 'The book that I keep pressing into friends' hands is Coming Rain by Stephen Daisley in which alternate chapters are narrated by a pregnant female dingo. Nothing short of genius.' -- Clare Wright The Books We Loved 2016, Sydney Morning Herald 'This is an astonishingly good read...The writing is spare, the landscape and relationships haunting-a beautiful and unforgettable read.' Stuff.co.nz

Author Bio

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