Our Shadows by Gail Jones
About Gail Jones
Gail Jones is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. She is the author of two short story collections and eight novels, and her work has been translated into several languages. She has received numerous literary awards, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the Age Book of the Year, the South Australian Premier’s Award, the ALS Gold Medal and the Kibble Award, and has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the International Dublin Literary Award and the Prix Femina Étranger. Originally from Western Australia, she now lives in Sydney.
A Quote from Gail Jones
“The task of imagining history beyond our own - with interest, curiosity and genuine engagement - is both a moral obligation and an intellectual adventure. The ARA Historical Novel Prize honours such texts and I’m delighted Our Shadows is among those shortlisted.”
About Our Shadows
Our Shadows tells the story of three generations of family living in Kalgoorlie, where gold was discovered in 1893 by an Irish-born prospector named Paddy Hannan, whose own history weaves in and out of this beguiling novel. Sisters Nell and Frances were raised by their grandparents and were once closely bound by reading and fantasy. Now they live in Sydney and are estranged. Each in her own way struggles with the loss of their parents. Little by little the sisters grow to understand the imaginative force of the past and the legacy of their shared orphanhood. Then Frances decides to make a journey home to the goldfields to explore what lies hidden and unspoken in their lives, in the shadowy tunnels of the past.
Quotes from the Judging Panel
“In 1893 gold was found in Western Australia. Good luck for some. But the life of the main character of the novel, twentieth century orphan Frances Kelly, is ‘a tale of bad luck’. Frances ponders the elusive identity of her missing father, as the narrative moves back and forth in time, mining the darkness of the past, searching for the glint of truth. Through a century of wars and other disasters, waves of fiction and non-fiction rise, fall, fracture, merge to present a terrifying and un-nerving vision of a whole world in crisis.”
“Gail Jones excels in the poetic evocation of the most violent misery and abject suffering. She places moments of touching grace alongside episodes of horror as well as ugly banality. The tale begins in Ireland among the simple sunshine of golden daffodils, and takes the reader on a grim exploration of the many sorrowful faces of human greed.”
