Eyrie: A Novel

by Tim Winton

Overview

Shortlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award

An exhilarating new book from Australia's most acclaimed writer

Tim Winton is Australia's most decorated and beloved literary novelist. Short-listed twice for the Booker Prize and the winner of a record four Miles Franklin Awards for Best Australian Novel, he has a gift for language virtually unrivaled among English-language novelists. His work is both tough and tender, primordial and new—always revealing the raw, instinctual drives that lure us together and rend us apart.

In Eyrie, Winton crafts the story of Tom Keely, a man struggling to accomplish good in an utterly fallen world. Once an ambitious, altruistic environmentalist, Keely now finds himself broke, embroiled in scandal, and struggling to piece together some semblance of a life. From the heights of his urban high-rise apartment, he surveys the wreckage of his life and the world he's tumbled out of love with. Just before he descends completely into pills and sorrow, a woman from his past and her preternatural child appear, perched on the edge of disaster, desperate for help.

When you're fighting to keep your head above water, how can you save someone else from drowning? As Keely slips into a nightmarish world of con artists, drug dealers, petty violence, and extortion, Winton confronts the cost of benevolence and creates a landscape of uncertainty. Eyrie is a thrilling and vertigo-inducing morality tale, at once brutal and lyrical, from one of our finest storytellers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250069337
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	06/09/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Tim Winton is widely considered one of the greatest living Australian writers. He has published numerous books, and his work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music, and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). He lives in Western Australia.

Reading Group Guide

Australia's most decorated literary novelist, Tim Winton, brings to light the corners of humanity where hope prevails in even the most trying circumstances—episodes that are by turns tough and tender, captured in scenes of unflinching realism. In Eyrie, Winton introduces us to Tom Keely, a man who has lost everything that matters to him. Once an ambitious environmentalist, Keely now finds himself embroiled in scandal, divorced, and scraping together a bare-bones existence on the west coast of Australia—until a chance encounter with a neighbor transforms his view of life. He remembers Gemma from childhood; she and her sister often sought refuge at his house. As she goes to war against the petty criminals and dealers who threaten to bring down her world, Keely finds a cause that will test everything he believes about himself and his place in the world.

We hope that the following discussion topics will enrich your reading group's experience of this stirring novel.

1. Tim Winton is known for crafting highly evocative settings. Discuss the landscape of Fremantle and the grit of Blackboy Crescent, the street where Tom Keely's earliest memories were formed. How do the novel's locales affect the way the characters see themselves?

2. Discuss the title and its reference to an elevated bird's nest or other secluded perch. What does Keely see from the eyrie of his apartment, and in the eyrie of his mind? What sort of eyrie is he able to provide for Gemma and Kai?

3. What does the novel say about the nature of evildoers such as Stewie and Clappy? Is addiction a cause or a symptom (or both) of the anguish experienced in their community?

4. Why has Keely been drawn to the natural world all his life? Which healing aspects of nature can he impart to Kai?

5. How is Keely affected by the memory of his biker-evangelist dad? What enabled Doris and Nev to become the safe haven for the Buck children? Ultimately, what makes for good parenting in Eyrie?

6. How does faith (religious or otherwise) play out in Eyrie? What motivates Keely to launch a duel between the dollar sign and the cross?

7. Discuss the role of money and commerce in communities like Fremantle. What determines who will struggle to survive and who will thrive? Who are the characters who have power in this world? Who are the most vulnerable characters?

8. How does Keely's relationship with Gemma compare to his marriage to Harriet?

9. Beginning with Bunker's abuse of her when she was a child, what did Gemma learn to expect from men? As she begins to trust Keely, how do her needs change?

10. What brings Kai the greatest comfort? How does Keely transform his understanding of love?

11. When Keely thinks about his status as an outcast within the environmental movement, is he realistic when he sees no future for his career? Has he truly run out of ways to save the land he loves, or is he simply unable to see his own value? Have you ever stood at a similar crossroads?

12. What accounts for the differences between Keely and his sister, Faith? In what ways is he more successful than she is?

13. How does Eyrie enhance your experience of Tim Winton's other novels? What is unique about his approach to human hardship and solace?

14. Is there a Gemma in your childhood memories—someone you'd want to reconnect with because you share a powerful past?

Editorial Reviews

Eyrie is a dark but dazzling study of people ance palces on the edge . . . in [Winton's] hands, with his distinctive Australian voice and vernacular, this disquieting story also has the power to surprise and delight—perhaps even to inspire.” —Allison McCullough, The New York Times Book Review

“The beginning of the book is fueled . . . by the astonishing, limber prose that has made Winton one of the most celebrated writers in Australia . . . Of the many achievements of this extraordinary novel, one of the most remarkable is the way the the past gradually spills into the present . . . In a book full of teriffic characters and sharply drawn relationships, the most memorable is the bond between Keely and the seemingly doomed Kai. It's heartbreaking.” —Porter Shreve, Washington Post

“A brilliant tour-de-force.” —Adam Woog, The Seattle Times

“Fans of Mr. Winton will expect lucid characterisation and atmospheric prose; the author finds poetry in the grimmest scenes. Eyrie has all this plus a page-turning narrative that tumbles inexorably towards its ending. This is Tim Winton in searingly good form.” —The Economist

From the Publisher