The Sun Walks Down: ‘Steinbeckian majesty’ – Sunday Times

A blazing mystery . . . tremendous’ Guardian’Moving and masterful’ Daily Mail’Masterful storytelling’ Washington Post’Brilliant, fresh and compulsively readable. It is marvellous’ Ann Patchett’Remarkable’ Harper’sA MASTERFUL NOVEL BY THE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE NIGHT GUEST AND THE HIGH PLACES, AN EPIC TALE OF UNSETTLEMENT, HISTORY, MYTH, LOVE AND ART.In September 1883, a small town in the South Australian outback huddles under strange, vivid sunsets. Six-year-old Denny Wallace has gone missing during a dust storm, and the entire community is caught up in the search for him. As they scour the desert and mountains for the lost child, the residents of Fairly – newlyweds, landowners, farmers, mothers, artists, Indigenous trackers, cameleers, children, schoolteachers, widows, maids, policemen – confront their relationships with each other and with the ancient landscape they inhabit.The colonial Australia of The Sun Walks Down is unfamiliar, multicultural, and noisy with opinions, arguments, longings and terrors. It’s haunted by many gods – the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.’McFarlane’s treatment of the dust storm has a simple Steinbeckian majesty . . . Her prose is full of detail, comparable to Claire Keegan’s keen-eyed novellas, Foster and Small Things Like These’ Sunday Times’A thrilling success . . . full of mystery and wonder’ Wall Street Journal’Fiona McFarlane’s last book was scintillating. The Sun Walks Down is even better’ Sarah Moss’Gorgeous storytelling and superb characters . . . magnificent’ Michelle de Kretser’I can’t think of another writer working today who I admire more’ Kevin Powers