The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea

"Yes, that’s right. It is a kind of coming-of-age novel. It was really hard to choose just five novels to sum up Australia’s modern classics. The ones I’ve chosen all seem to have quite a large geographical sweep and also quite a large sweep through time. Maybe that says something about me or maybe that says something about Australia! This is a book set in Western Australia on the shores of the Indian Ocean in a small country town with a family that has been there for some generations. So there is this established life in this remote place. And then the Second World War comes as a threat to that. It is told from the point of view of a young boy. He hero-worships his cousin who goes off to the war, has horrible experiences in the Pacific and comes back bitter and disillusioned. It is about the young boy’s reaction to all of that. It’s a beautifully poetic novel. I read it when I was a teenager and it’s retained its glow for me over the years."