The Clinking

From Richell Prize-winning debut author Susie Greenhill comes a tender and profoundly moving exploration of life and loss.

In the early morning, Elena woke as Orla pulled back the doona and climbed into their bed. She unfolded Elena's fingers and pressed a tiny model penguin into her hand. Still half asleep, Elena rolled over. Outside the window, black cockatoos were dropping wattle galls onto the street. The room was silent, the dawn light dull and grey. And Tom was gone . . .

In the not-too-distant future on the island of lutruwita, where the seas glow blue with bioluminescence and ancient forests wither in the heat, a young family are caught in the eye of a storm.

As an ecologist working on extinctions, Tom knows the world he loves is unravelling around him. He cares deeply for his wife Elena, a journalist, and their daughter Orla, but he is haunted by disappearing species and the news of bushfires, floods and famine. In his mind, the damage done to the Earth has tipped into the irreversible. Elena can only watch helplessly as Tom's grief consumes him. And then, one day, Tom vanishes.

Alone, Elena asks herself, 'How can I be a mother to my child in this world?' In the remote south-west wilderness, she sets out to find answers and the hope she needs for herself and her daughter. But is there hope left to find?

'A tragic love song for the natural world. A poignant and compelling search for hope in everything we're losing, everything we've lost.' BEN WALTER

'Greenhill's writing is unlike any I have encountered in its luminous effectiveness.' LOUISE WESTLING

'Powerful and inventive' THE AUSTRALIAN

'Lyrical and moving' GOOD READING MAGAZINE

'Beautiful . . . A stunning, devastating debut' THE GUARDIAN

'Exquisite . . . A lesson in how to look with clear eyes at the historical moment we're living through - and at the destination to which we're headed' THE MERCURY