Book Description

'The best Australian novel on war since David Malouf's Ransom.' Richard Glover Packed into tiny boats, Michael, his brother Dan and their mates think only of what is to come. These young Australians miss home, hate the enemy and are choking in fear. After the surreal panic of that first dawn charge up the Turkish beaches, when nothing is as they were told, they dig in. For the next eight months, each will play his part in the epic battle of Gallipoli. Trying to survive in the lottery of close warfare and watching as the seasons change, Michael comes to wonder whether the men he fights are so different from himself. Wedged in the trenches, soldiers of both sides will be irrevocably changed by two relentless forces - the turning seasons and the grinding machine of war. Even if they survive, what will they become? This powerfully lyrical novel by acclaimed screenwriter Christopher Lee (writer of the TV series Gallipoli) takes us to the heart of the diggers' experience. It brings to life the kind of truth that only fiction can - what it was like to be in those trenches, and how the character of the nation transformed when Gallipoli changed these men. 'As brilliant as fiction could be at putting us in the shoes of, on the beaches and in the trenches with, the men who fought and died in droves during that fateful campaign . . . Deeply imagined, unfolding with stark lyricism the traumatic reality of the past. Fiction worthy of its grave subject, I'd be surprised if it doesn't make the literature syllabus in our schools.' Cameron Woodhead, The Age 'Stands comparison with Erich Maria Remarque's classic All Quiet on the Western Front and Australian Frederic Manning's acclaimed Her Privates We . . . Deserves to be read widely.' Ross Southernwood, Sydney Morning Herald