Tamarisk Row

First published in Australia in 1974, and like all his books unpublished in the UK until now, Tamarisk Row is Gerald Murnane's first novel, and in many respects his masterpiece, an unsparing evocation of a Catholic childhood in a country town in the late 1940s. Clement Killeaton transforms his surroundings into an imagined world centred on horse-racing, played out in the dusty backyard of his home, across the landscapes of the district, and the continent of Australia. Out of the child's boredom and fear and fascination, Murnane's lyrical prose opens perspectives charged with yearning and illumination, offering in the process a truly original view of mid-twentieth-century boyhood.