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