LoveReading Says
Set in colonial South Australia in 1883, Fiona McFarlane’s The Sun Walks Down is extraordinarily evocative and completely compelling, its characters evoked with crisp precision, and its glowing, ancient backdrop a tapestry of complicated relationships, longings, prejudices and beliefs.
While his sisters are at a local wedding, six-year-old Danny goes missing during a sudden dust storm. When he’s not found by his family, the community of Fairly come out in force to search for him. During the search, the community comes together as one, but discover they are far from united as the story unfolds across a week.
Rivalries and differences come to the fore. Superstitions and prejudices are exposed, and boundaries are blurred as the novel lays bare colonisation’s impact on indigenous communities while also unravelling the intricate relationships within the community. With its sublime storytelling, The Sun Walks Down casts a powerfully haunting shadow.
Reviewed by Joanne OwenJoanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen About The Sun Walks Down
A masterful novel by the prize-winning author of The Night Guest and The High Places, an epic tale of unsettlement, history, myth, love and art.
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The Sun Walks Down Synopsis
A masterful novel by the prize-winning author of The Night Guest and The High Places, an epic tale of unsettlement, history, myth, love and art.
In September 1883, a small town in the South Australian outback huddles under strange, vivid sunsets. Six-year-old Denny Wallace has gone missing during a dust storm, and the entire community is caught up in the search for him. As they scour the desert and mountains for the lost child, the residents of Fairly - newlyweds, landowners, farmers, mothers, artists, Indigenous trackers, cameleers, children, schoolteachers, widows, maids, policemen - confront their relationships with each other and with the ancient landscape they inhabit.
The colonial Australia of The Sun Walks Down is unfamiliar, multicultural, and noisy with opinions, arguments, longings and terrors. It's haunted by many gods - the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781529389821 |
| Publication date: |
9th March 2023 |
| Author: |
Fiona McFarlane |
| Publisher: |
Sceptre an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
416 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Historical Fiction
|
Fiona McFarlane Press Reviews
'The Sun Walks Down' is the book I'm always longing to find: brilliant, fresh and compulsively readable. It is marvellous. I loved it from start to finish'. Ann Patchett
'Gorgeous storytelling and superb characters are among the glories of The Sun Walks Down. Fiona McFarlane is an extraordinary writer, one of the best working today. Her magnificent reworking of the lost child story showcases the profound understanding she brings to people, places and the past. I lived in this wise, majestic novel for days and never wanted it to end'. Michelle de Kretser
'An exceptional, multi-layered historical novel with a beautifully styled plot. The power with which Fiona McFarlane evokes the place and time is extraordinary - a gorgeously written book'. Evie Wyld
'Quite simply, the best novel I've ever read about 19th-century Australia. A tense search for a lost child unfolds with rising dread against a landscape of harsh and radiant beauty, amid lives as tangled as barbed wire'. Geraldine Brooks
'Mesmerising. It's a story with the quality of a myth or fable, that somehow manages to seem both restrained and infinite at once. And if that's all sounding a bit hoity-toity, be assured it's an engrossing mystery' - Sydney Morning Herald
'The Sun Walks Down is a brilliant, intimate epic, a book about a family and also about history that is full of heart and heat. Fiona McFarlane's ear for the gurgles and clamor and hidden symphonies of her characters' souls is flawless; the way their lives intertwine is propulsive, heartbreaking. She is, simply, one of the best writers around'. Elizabeth McCracken
'The Sun Walks Down is a revelation. McFarlane places her lens first over the disappearance of a small boy in the Australian Outback and zooms out, weaving the stories of the people involved in the search for him into a tapestry as richly imagined and fully realized as anything I've read in recent memory. Her sentences fit together with the beauty of fine carpentry, and with them she's constructed a novel that calls to my mind no less than Patrick White's The Tree of Man. I can't think of another writer working today who I admire more' Kevin Powers
'Fiona McFarlane's last book was scintillating. The Sun Walks Down is even better. It's compelling: old-fashioned in all the best ways, historically sensitive, generous in storytelling and yet modern and sharp' Sarah Moss
'This tale of a farming community's search for a missing child offers intimate human drama, ruminations on the intersections of art and life, and a sweeping, still relevant view of race and class in Australia. A masterpiece of riveting storytelling' - Kirkus
'Taut, rich, intelligent and mesmerizing' - ABC News
'With a child missing in remote Australia, this may sound like any recent 'outback noir' thriller - but McFarlane's beautifully written second novel has much more in common with Lanny by Max Porter or Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor: all vibrant, otherworldly stories of a small community in flux, discombobulated by a singular tragedy' - Guardian Australia
'An extraordinary work of fiction that I have no doubt will become a classic of Australian literature' Emily Bitto
'The Sun Walks Down is that rare kind of novel, where there is something to enjoy and admire on every page. McFarlane's elegant, sharply observed prose beautifully conjures an unforgettable time and place' Carys Davies, author of West and The Mission House
'In precise, often glorious prose, the novel affords each character, including little Denny, a rich interiority, even as the landscape itself - a terrain layered with significance and myth for aboriginal peoples, while for Europeans civilization there appears thin - provokes awe. With this remarkable novel, McFarlane establishes her place in the firmament of Australian letters, reworking and expanding the imaginary of its early years -- Claire Messud' - Harper's
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