The Half-Burnt Tree

(Paperback)

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'Then she saw again the dark figure rise, poised on the wavetop.' Paul, a Vietnam vet disfigured by a napalm attack, has recently been deserted by his horrified wife. Day after day he camps at Devil's Head and takes his surfboard over the outer reef, hoping the sharp rocks will claim him and save him from his nightmares. From the shop on the beach, Brenda, scarred by her brief marriage to an air-force pilot, watches his crazy dance of death. A starving and homeless Aboriginal boy trying to find enough food to survive after his parents' death becomes an intermediary between the two misfits consumed by their own demons. And one day the two are forced out of their introspection when tragedy intervenes.

Author Bio

Ellen Dymphna Cusack is the author of Jungfrau, Southern Steel, Picnic Races, Black Lightning and The Half-Burnt Tree, among others.