Harland's Half Acre

The story is about one of the strange quarks of life that makes the least likely figure, in this case Frank Harland, noted as an artist of extraordinary talent beyond what he could have been considering his circumstances. Born to a dirt poor widower before the Great War we follow Harland's outsider life and that of his outsider family as he becomes closely associated with the flawed middle class Vernon's.

I rapidly got sucked in hard by this brilliant book. Malouf's writing is a pleasure. Descriptive without being overwrought. He has written such wonderful prose that I found myself rereading his powerful descriptions of Harland's art as well as the accidental life and fate that he was immersed by. The writing was so good that it could seamlessly convey the changes in narration from the third person to the first, never making me the reader lose track of the intense power of the words written. Their power made it easy to read of a changing Brisbane, and with that Australia in general, from one being a begotten colonial outpost to a nation becoming part of a changing wider world. All this mirrored through the life of the strange but gifted Harland and his family through to, the sometime narrator, Phil Vernon who in his own way was aware of being an observer to that change.

I was recommended this book by Greg. His fantastic review here.

An Australian literary classic!