Walkabout

Fiction & Literature, Native American & Aboriginal, Coming of Age, Literary
Cover of the book Walkabout by James Vance Marshall, New York Review Books
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: James Vance Marshall ISBN: 9781590175057
Publisher: New York Review Books Publication: January 17, 2012
Imprint: NYRB Classics Language: English
Author: James Vance Marshall
ISBN: 9781590175057
Publisher: New York Review Books
Publication: January 17, 2012
Imprint: NYRB Classics
Language: English

A plane crashes in the vast Northern Territory of Australia, and the only survivors are two children from Charleston, South Carolina, on their way to visit their uncle in Adelaide. Mary and her younger brother, Peter, set out on foot, lost in the vast, hot Australian outback. They are saved by a chance meeting with an unnamed Aboriginal boy on walkabout. He looks after the two strange white children and shows them how to find food and water in the wilderness, and yet, for all that, Mary is filled with distrust.

On the surface Walkabout is an adventure story, but darker themes lie beneath. Peter’s innocent friendship with the boy met in the desert throws into relief Mary’s half-adult anxieties, and the book as a whole raises questions about what is lost—and may be saved—when different worlds meet. And in reading Marshall’s extraordinary evocations of the beautiful yet forbidding landscape of the Australian desert, perhaps the most striking presence of all in this small, perfect book, we realize that this tale—a deep yet disturbing story in the spirit of Adalbert Stifter’s Rock Crystal and Richard Hughes’s A High Wind in Jamaica—is also a reckoning with the mysteriously regenerative powers of death.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

A plane crashes in the vast Northern Territory of Australia, and the only survivors are two children from Charleston, South Carolina, on their way to visit their uncle in Adelaide. Mary and her younger brother, Peter, set out on foot, lost in the vast, hot Australian outback. They are saved by a chance meeting with an unnamed Aboriginal boy on walkabout. He looks after the two strange white children and shows them how to find food and water in the wilderness, and yet, for all that, Mary is filled with distrust.

On the surface Walkabout is an adventure story, but darker themes lie beneath. Peter’s innocent friendship with the boy met in the desert throws into relief Mary’s half-adult anxieties, and the book as a whole raises questions about what is lost—and may be saved—when different worlds meet. And in reading Marshall’s extraordinary evocations of the beautiful yet forbidding landscape of the Australian desert, perhaps the most striking presence of all in this small, perfect book, we realize that this tale—a deep yet disturbing story in the spirit of Adalbert Stifter’s Rock Crystal and Richard Hughes’s A High Wind in Jamaica—is also a reckoning with the mysteriously regenerative powers of death.

More books from New York Review Books

Cover of the book My Friends by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book Father and Son by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book Grand Hotel by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book The Little Water Sprite by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book A Time to Keep Silence by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book Jim at the Corner by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book Ecstasy and Terror by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book A School for Fools by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book His Only Son by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book Nothing More to Lose by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book Cassandra at the Wedding by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book A Visit to Don Otavio by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book Castle Gripsholm by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book Arzee the Dwarf by James Vance Marshall
Cover of the book The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter by James Vance Marshall
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy