Wanting
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Price:
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$22.99
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On Sale:
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04/05/2009
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Formats:
Trade PB
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From the author of the
bestselling Gould’s Book of Fish, The Sound of One Hand Clapping
and The Unknown Terrorist comes a haunting meditation on love, loss and
the way life is finally determined never by reason, but only ever by wanting.
In 19th-century Van
Diemen’s Land, a young Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, is adopted by the celebrated
explorer Sir John Franklin and his wife, Lady Jane, to show that the savage can
be civilized. Lady Jane believes the distance between savagery and civilization
is the learned capacity to control wanting. The experiment fails, and Sir John
disappears into the blue ice of the Arctic, seeking the Northwest Passage. A
decade later, Lady Jane enlists Charles Dickens’ aid to put an end to the
scandalous suggestions that Sir John’s expedition ended in cannibalism.
Wanting confirms
Richard Flanagan’s growing reputation as one of our most original and powerful
novelists.
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Author Extras
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Critical Praise for
Wanting
“Stunning. . . . Brilliant. . . . A book that deserves to win
[Flanagan] the sort of readership enjoyed by two much better-known novelists
with whom he has much in common: Don DeLillo and Martin Amis.”
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The New York Times on The Unknown Terrorist
“A terrific novel, maintained at fever heat.”
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The Guardian on The Unknown Terrorist
“Captivating. . . . A masterpiece in craft and structure.”
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The Washington Times on The Unknown Terrorist
"[Flanagan's] prose is strong and precise, and the depiction of desire's
effects is sublime."
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Publishers Weekly
“Wanting is powerfully and poetically evocative, particularly of place
and character. It is often confronting, full of provocative asides and intensely
imagined scenes of which the deaths of Franklin, gangrenous and sinking in his
ice-crushed coffin of a ship, and ruined discarded teenager Mathinna are the
most haunting.”
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Adelaide Advertiser
“This is the best novel I have read this year or expect to read for several
more.”
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Sydney Morning Herald
"Moving seamlessly through time, across two continents and between three
storylines, Wanting is a marvel of precision and cohesion."
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The Sun-Herald
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Wanting
It is 1844. In the remote penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land, a barefoot Aboriginal girl sits for a portrait in a red silk dress. She is Mathinna, the adopted daughter of the island’s governor, Sir John Franklin, and his wife, Lady Jane, and the subject of a grand experiment in civilization -- one...
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The Unknown Terrorist
New Page 1 A provocative thriller of a post-9/11 world, from the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize–winning author of Gould’s Book of Fish and The Sound of One Hand Clapping. Gina Davies, a.k.a. “The Doll” is a 26- year-old pole dancer at the Chairman’s Lounge night club....
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