A review by Jonty Driver: The Shepherd's Hut, by Tim Winton

I'd like to recommend Tim Winton's latest novel, THE SHEPHERD'S HUT.  Winton is a well-known Australian novelist, often commended by other writers.  This novel is reviewed, very well, in the latest TLS by Jay Griffiths. It's the story, told in the first person, very much in what one assumes is the vernacular of a very difficult young man, constantly and savagely beaten up by his drunken father. After the death of his mother from cancer, and then the accidental death of his father (for which the boy thinks he might be blamed) he flees his home, on foot, and walks into the bush, taking a rifle but forgetting a knife.  There, eventually, just in time to save himself from death by dehydration, he falls into the company of a disgraced Catholic priest exiled to the edge of a salt lake, and there – after the violent intrusion of urban criminals – finds a state of grace, as does the fallen priest.  It's an exciting read, with mythic undertones, and I read it fast, and then re-read parts of it more slowly, which is always (in my experience) a sign of imaginative richness.