Lawrence is a bright, kind and talented boy of ten years old when he is groomed and raped by his damaged uncle. The act severs Lawrence from himself. Like the stammer Lawrence develops, where words collide and are blocked, so is he. When Lawrence reaches early adulthood, he starts a friendship with the son of one of his workmates. He connects with the boy he once was, damaged beyond *. At the heart of Lawrence's desires is the longing to be made whole. But after he is savagely beaten by the boy's father and his workmates, Lawrence decides to retreat from the world. He stays on in his mother's country home, and lives as a hermit for the next thirty years.
When a single mother moves into the abandoned farm next door to Lawrence with her teenage daughter and ten-year-old son, his isolation is shattered and he withdraws completely. But the mother asks him to get back to work on the vegetable garden he'd been tending on their land before their arrival. Her boy David is left alone at home a lot, and he and Lawrence begin a friendship. The sense of tension and foreboding is almost unbearable as we witness the boy's growing interest in Lawrence and the older man's blossoming at the chance of the tenderness he has been denied his whole life.
In the end, an act of breathtaking courage and sacrifice will save both Lawrence and the boy, but by then your heart will have shattered into a million pieces. Miles Franklin-award winner Sofie Laguna's new novel is both dark and confronting, but transformative through the light, redemption and joy the author so masterfully conjures in its pages. You finish the book with a sense of wonder and exhilaration for what she has achieved and what the book has given you as a reader.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Seller: Arapiles Mountain Books - Mount of Alex, Castlemaine, VIC, Australia
Soft Cover. Condition: VG+. First Edition. 8vo. original printed paper wraps (a little rubbed & creased); pp. [xii (last blank)], 436 (last blank). A very good copy. Although unmarked, this copy is ex-libris Miles Franklin Literary Award winning novelist, Alex Miller. Seller Inventory # 029371
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Good condition ex-library book with usual library markings and stickers. Seller Inventory # 00045378370