Memorable and compelling, this novel quietly settles into thoughts and feelings even as it fiercely and passionately protects both its time and place. We are never told but it is likely to be 19th century Tasmania as the setting, nature is exquisitely described and both the transplanted puma and people who attempt to tame the land are out of place. The original inhabitants live side by side with nature, highlighting the interlopers. Twins Iris and Floyd twisted their way into my heart with their strength and fragility. Their decisions made out of a need to escape their past, and their kinship and vulnerability made me positively ache. For its beauty and the fact that the ending will haunt me, I just had to add this as both a LoveReading Star Book and Liz Pick of the month. Dusk is a soul-searing, wild, stunning novel I can highly recommend.
An explosive novel of the wild, and the lengths humans will go to control it
The distant highlands, covered in snow and strewn with ancient bones, are an alien home for a puma from South America. But when Dusk escapes her captors, reports of killing sprees of sheep and shepherds are not long to follow.
The highlands are no less alien to twins Iris and Floyd, whose family history renders them outcasts. Out of work, money and friends, they hear of the significant bounty on Dusk's head. They decide to join the hunt.
As they journey up into the wild, haunted country, they discover there's far more to the land and people than they imagined. Forced to make an uneasy alliance with a fellow tracker, the twins' lifelong bond is put at risk. And as the trio close in on their prey, it becomes clear where the true danger lies . . .
'Starkly beautiful and deeply felt ... the pared-back textures of Dusk's prose occasionally recall those of Cormac McCarthy' Guardian (Australia)
Author
About Robbie Arnott
Robbie Arnott was born in Launceston in 1989. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He won the 2015 Tasmanian Young Writers' Fellowship and the 2014 Scribe Non-fiction Prize for Young Writers. He lives in Hobart.
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