The Lost Dog

Publisher's synopsis

Tom Loxley is holed up in a remote bush shack trying to finish his book on Henry James when his beloved dog goes missing. What follows is a triumph of storytelling, as The Lost Dog loops back and forth in time to take the reader on a spellbinding journey into worlds far removed from the present tragedy.

Set in present-day Australia and mid-twentieth century India, here is a haunting, layered work that brilliantly counterpoints new cityscapes and their inhabitants with the untamed, ancient continent beyond. With its atmosphere of menace and an acute sense of the unexplained in any story, it illuminates the collision of the wild and the civilised, modernity and the past, home and exile.

The Lost Dog is a mystery and a love story, an exploration of art and nature, a meditation on ageing and the passage of time. It is a book of wonders: a gripping contemporary novel which examines the weight of history as well as different ways of understanding the world.

Awards

Winner 2008 NSW Premier’s Book of the Year Award
Winner 2008 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction (NSW Premier’s Literary Awards)
Winner 2008 ALS Gold Medal
Shortlisted 2008 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction (VIC Premier’s Literary Awards)
Shortlisted 2008 Western Australia Premier’s Australia–Asia Literary Award
Shortlisted 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Best Book, Asia–Pacific Region)
Shortlisted 2008 Orange Prize’s Shadow Youth Panel
Longlisted 2008 Man Booker Prize
Longlisted 2008 Orange Prize for Fiction

Other Recommended Titles

The Red Shoe

Carpentaria

Jasper Jones

Births Deaths Marriages: True Tales

Michelle de Kretser

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer. She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which was widely praised by writers such as A. S. Byatt, Hilary Mantel and William Boyd and won a swag of awards, including: the 2008 NSW Premier’s Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. The Lost Dog was also shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Western Australian Premier’s Australia-Asia Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Asia-Pacific Region) and Orange Prize’s Shadow Youth Panel. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction.

Further Details

Author Michelle de Kretser

Publisher Allen & Unwin

Date of Publication 2007

ISBN 9781741756067

Category Novels