When a boy goes missing during a dust storm, mysteriously absorbed into the Australian landscape, a town goes in search of him. 1883, South Australia. The town of Fairly is experiencing a dust storm. The horizon shimmers with the burning colours of red and yellow. A six-year-old boy, Denny Wallace, has gone missing during the storm. A child brought up in the bush, he's seems to have simply wandered off. When the adults find out, the whole town is launched into action. A broad cast of characters – police, Indigenous trackers, Denny's elder sister, Cissy, the boy's father – all work in their own idiosyncratic ways to find the boy. The Sun Walks Down is the second novel from Australian writer Fiona McFarlane. There's little plot to talk of, the story propelled along by the eccentric interactions of a brilliantly drawn cast. There are all sorts here, besides the main cast of family, police and Indigenous trackers. McFarlane throws in a Swedish artist, a prostitute, a mad vicar, some Afghan cameleers, a police seargeant who thinks himself more inspired writer than cop, among others. The evocative, almost poetic descriptions of landscape, flora and fauna give McFarlane's story a rich, satisfying texture. A highly wrought portrait of Australia's alienating landscape, written in an endlessly seductive prose and shot through with delicious irony and sly humour. You won't read a better book this year. The Sun Walks Down, by Fiona McFarlane. Published by Allen & Unwin. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Comments are closed.
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