Swimming in Silk

Winner, Australian/Vogel Literary Award 1994 'Under a star-soaked sky he ran miles and miles along a dusty road. Behind him, on the horizon, over the ocean, a massive storm glittered and boiled.' Brilliant skies, sudden storms, black nights and a ramshackle house that is disintegrating into the rainforest. Sheltering from their pasts, Cliff, Susan, Daniel and Jade experience a few oddly idyllic days and nights together in the small coastal town two of them call home and to which the others have returned. Daniel has arrived fragile from a broken relationship and failed dreams. Susan has left her husband and the city for the comfort of her childhood memories. Cliff and Jade, together for now, live out their own fantasies. There seems no reason for these days to end until, for each of them, the past breaks through into the prestent and the strengths of desires, friendships, loyalties and blood-ties are tested. Swimming In Silk is an extraordinarily evocative and sensual novel about the mysterious and intricate relationship between people, the elements, and the land in which they live.