The final episode of Australia’s beloved The Book Club on ABC airs on Tuesday, 19 December at 9.30pm. Each of the five presenters will be talking about their top book pick for 2017.
Text is thrilled to announce that Jason Steger’s best book of the year is Michael Sala’s haunting novel The Restorer.
‘Unputdownable…Sala creates an atmosphere of simmering tension with an undercurrent of unpredictability that seeps into every exchange.’
— Saturday Paper
Haunting and unforgettable, The Restorer explores the insufficiency of love, the way trauma shapes identity and the power parents have over the lives of their children.
After a year apart, Maryanne returns to her husband, Roy, bringing their eight-year-old son Daniel and his teenage sister Freya with her. The family move from Sydney to Newcastle, where Roy has bought a derelict house on the coast. As Roy painstakingly patches the holes in the floorboards and plasters over cracks in the walls, Maryanne believes, for a while, that they can rebuild a life together.
But Freya doesn’t want a fresh start – she just wants out – and Daniel drifts around the sprawling, run-down house in a dream, infuriating his father, who soon forgets the promises he has made.
Some cracks can never be smoothed over, and tension grows between Roy and Maryanne until their uneasy peace is ruptured –with devastating consequences.
‘This is powerful, poetic, extraordinary fiction…Sala never falters.’
— Australian
The Restorer
‘A slow-burning work of fiction that moves with troubling intensity and sensitivity to give an insider’s account of a violent marriage.’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘Entrancing and heartbreakingly sad.’ Who Weekly
The Restorer by Michael Sala is available now at all good bookshops, on the Text website (free postage!) and in eBook.
