To Name Those Lost - Paperback

by Rohan Wilson (Author)

"Wilson's superbly taut novel keeps up its pace with spare punctuation and brutal dialogue in a vigorously drawn landscape feverish with the heat of a bushfire summer."-The Saturday Paper

"Wilson's beautiful writing stands out in harsh contrast to the world of violence, heartache, and human suffering he depicts." -Historical Novels Review

Rohan Wilson's prize-winning American debut draws inspiration from classic westerns to tell a tale of vengeance and redemption set against the sweeping grandeur of the Australian frontier.

It is the summer of 1874. Launceston, a colonial outpost on the island of Tasmania, hovers on the brink of anarchy as a volatile mix of revolutionaries, convicts, drunks, crooked coppers, and poor strugglers looking for a break threatens to boil over. The outlaw Thomas Toosey races into this dangerous bedlam to rescue his motherless twelve-year-old son, pursued all the while by a vengeful Irishman named Fitheal Flynn to whom he owes an unpayable debt.

Brilliantly told in galloping, lyrical prose, based on real-life events, and infused with gothic tones reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner, To Name Those Lost tells a story of fatherly devotion and the search for moral bearings in a world that has none.

"Readers who admired the propulsive plotting, atmospheric sense of place, and fierce family loyalty in Patrick DeWitt's The Sisters Brothers and Cormac McCarthy's The Road should be equally taken with Wilson's superb novel."-Library Journal

"A fast-paced, hard-nosed fable about revenge, pursuit, and the search for a moral compass in a place where chaos and rage and injustice set every dial wildly aquiver."

-Kirkus Reviews

Author Biography

Rohan Wilson was named as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists in 2012. His debut novel, The Roving Party, won the 2011 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award as well as the Margaret Scott Prize, Tasmanian Literary Awards in 2013 and NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2012. To Name Those Lost won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and the Adelaide Festival Award for Best Novel. He lives in Tasmania.