Spirit House

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2014 ONDAATJE PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE MILES FRANKLIN AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD David is thirteen and confused. His mum has left with her lover and dumped David on his grandparents. David's grandfather, Jimmy, is seventy. He spends his days at the social club grumbling with his three best friends, all of them Jewish-Australian survivors of the enforced labour camps of the WWII Thai-Burma Railroad. But behind their playful backbiting and irresistible wit, Jimmy and his friends are haunted by the ghosts of long-dead comrades, and the only person Jimmy can confide in is a thirteen-year-old from a different world...

Mark Dapin was born in Leeds and moved to Australia in the late 1980s. He has been editor-in-chief of ACP's men's magazines, and a hugely popular newspaper columnist. He has degrees in Social Policy, Art History and Journalism. His first novel, King of the Cross, won the Ned Kelly award. Spirit House is his second novel. He lives in Sydney with his partner and two children.