The Turning - Hardcover

Winton, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330438301 ISBN 13: 9780330438308

Publisher: Picador, 2005

Synopsis

Tim Winton is undisputedly one of the finest storytellers working in the English language. Now he gives us seventeen exquisite, overlapping stories of second thoughts and mid-life regret – extraordinary tales of ordinary people from ordinary places. Here are turnings of all kinds – changes of heart, nasty surprises, slow awakenings, sudden detours – where people struggle against the terrible weight of the past and challenge the lives they’ve made for themselves.

Brilliantly crafted, and as tender as it is challenging, The Turning dissects and celebrates the moments when the light shines through.

About this title

Review:

The writing of Tim Winton has long been noted for its elegance, precision and keen insight into the human soul. With The Turning, we are given one of the most precise and satisfying distillations of the novelist's art, albeit in what has long been something of an unfashionable form: the short story. The form is often regarded by publishers as something of a commercial liability, even though many great writers (from Somerset Maugham to William Trevor) have excelled in shorter fiction. But Winton, as well as being one of the finest novelists Australia has ever produced, is also a master of the form. The seventeen overlapping tales here encapsulate some of the most insightful observations that he has given us.

What makes the stories so unusual is the fashion in which Winton has managed to find the unusual within the everyday--here, ordinary people are subjected to extraordinary pressures, and everything from middle-aged loss to youthful vacillations of the heart crafted with great skill.

Winton (who was born in Perth in Western Australia) has published fifteen books and has won a variety of literary prizes. The stories here can only add lustre to his reputation. Big World is the story of a friendship between two undergraduates who take on unsatisfactory jobs one frigid January, such as sluicing the blood from the floor of a local meat factory. The duo set off by car in pursuit of diversion, and we learn that neither is particularly lovable (particularly the eccentric Biggie); as the tale advances, the narrator learns to his cost that friendship comes at a price. This immensely involving piece is written in the kind of lambent prose that often aspires to the condition of poetry, despite the banality of the two young men's lives. Similarly, The Turning deals with trailer life, and its unhappy, unfulfilled working-class women are brilliantly characterised. Whatever your feelings about the short story form, you will be doing yourself a disservice to miss this collection. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

'Beneath the immediate-impact surface robustness, these stories are threaded through with subtleties and oblique connections.' -- Sunday Times

'Sublime... There's not a weak story here, and some are truly great. But then Winton is a great writer.' -- Daily Mail

'The laureate of Western Australia is back... This is like Carver - happily with a very large dose of Winton' -- Time Out

'Tim Winton can justifiably be considered one of Australia's best writers' -- TLS

'To read [Winton]is to be reminded not just of the possibilities of fiction but of the human heart.' -- The Times

'Vivid, elegiac and humorous... Unusually, I think, [the stories] bridge the gulf between short story and novel' -- Daily Telegraph

'[A] remarkable collection of interlinked short stories... a superbly balanced whole.' -- Guardian

'[a] remarkable collection of short fiction...The author’s attention to detail is flawless, his economy enviable, his humanity all-encompassing’ -- Sunday Times

‘Each character is skilfully knitted into the narrative fabric’ -- Yorkshire Post

‘The author’s attention to detail is flawless, his economy enviable, his humanity all-encompassing.’ -- Sunday Times, Culture

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0330438301
• ISBN 13: 9780330438308
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336