The Gift of Speed
|
On Sale:
|
1/11/2008
|
|
Formats:
Paperback
|
|
|
|
|
The history of his summer is written in the grass ...
In 1960 the West Indies arrive in Australia, bringing with them a carnival of music, colour and possibility. Michael, who is sixteen, is enthralled. If, like his heroes, he has the gift of speed, he will move beyond his suburb into the great world ...
And yet, as his summer unfolds, Michael realises that there are other ways to live. When the calypso chorus accompanying Frank Worrell and his team fades, Michael has learnt many things ... about his parents, his suburb, a girl called Kathleen Marsden, and about himself.
The Gift of Speed is a masterful blend of story-telling, memorable characters and a uniquely Australian sensibility by a novelist at the height of his powers.
′A must-read′ Bookseller+Publisher
′If, as they say, the past is another country, then Carroll is the ideal guide′ Sydney Morning Herald
′Rarely has such an arid place as suburban Melbourne in the heat of 1961 evoked such graceful and tender prose′ The Age
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD, 2005
|
|
|
Author Extras
Reading Guides:
|
|
|
|
Spirit of Progress
The thing that makes you, it never goesA sleek high-speed train glides silently through the French countryside, bearing Michael, an Australian writer, and his travelling world of memory and speculation. Melbourne, 1946, calls to him: the pressure cooker of the city...
|
|
The Lost Life
′This beautiful and poetically attentive novel retrieves a warm, beating heart from Eliot′s haunted, stark, magnificent work of art′ AUSTRALIAN LITERARY REVIEW They may never have a life together, but they will have their moment. They will have this much....
|
|
The Lost Life
They may never have a life together, but they will have their moment. They will have this much. England, September 1934 Two young lovers, Catherine and Daniel, have trespassed into the rose garden of Burnt Norton, an abandoned house in the English countryside. Hearing the sound...
|
|
|
Death of Kings
By Bernard Cornwell
Alfred, the great king, is said to be dying. Rivals for his succession are poised to tear the kingdom apart. The country Alfred has worked thirty years to build is about to disintegrate. Uhtred, the King′s warrior, Viking-born but Saxon-bred, wants more than...
|
|
A Perfectly Good Man
By Patrick Gale
The apparent serenity of parish life in Pendeen and Morvah is disturbed when 20-year-old Lenny Barnes takes his own life in the presence of Father Barnaby Thomas, the charismatic, indefatigable local priest, whose enduring service has made him a popular member of his Cornish...
|
|
Driving Jarvis Ham
By Jim Bob
Meet Jarvis Ham: tea-room assistant, diarist, lift-cadger, Princess Di fan, secret alcoholic, and relentless seeker of fame. Jarvis may be an all-round irritant, but he′s harmless, and deep down, you know, he′s got a heart of gold....
|
|
View more new releases »
|
|
|
|