Far away down below I saw Uncle Rodney and Ned watching and then the rest of the island behind them and then I looked up and saw the whole endless blue sky. ‘Over this time,’ said Dad, and over we floated. “The next wave that came was solid and full as a mountain. So obvious and well-learned are the signs that Robby doesn’t wait for the fireworks to come, alighting to his friend Justin’s place for a sleepover with an efficiency and desperation borne of many years of suffering his father’s alcohol-fuelled rages.

Gav’s retreat into this room and his retrieval of the Cutty Sark from the high cupboards of the kitchen is a warning to everyone in the house – wife Paula (who is her youngest son protector and strongest advocate though even she tires of his special needs at times), Jimmy and his older brother by six years Robby – to be on tenderhooks for as bitter experience has taught them violence and abuse always follows hard liquor and mournful American country music. Jimmy’s father, Gavin aka Gav, himself the product of an abusive father, often spends his Friday and Saturday nights drinking excessive amounts of Cutty Sark, a Scottish whisky that he imbibes in the peace and quiet of the living room while listening to a continuous stream of Merle Haggard songs. Part of its under-your-skin effect has to do with its soul-searing, heartrending but also joyfully hopeful narrative storyline in begins with then-six-year-old Jimmy Flick doing his level best to navigate a difficult, and often traumatic, family situation. There are books you read and appreciate, ones that draw you in and compel you to finish them but which for all their narrative appeal and readability, don’t really grab a hold off your heart in ways so profound you are thinking about them long after you have finished them.Īnd then, of course, there are novels like The Eye of the Sheep by 2015 Miles Franklin Award winner Sofie Laguna, which burrow their way so deeply into your heart and soul, that affect you on so many profound levels that you can’t think of a time when the book wasn’t a part of your life. (cover image courtesy Allen and Unwin Australia)

The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna