Tamarisk Row

Clement Killeaton transforms his father's gambling, his mother's piety, his fellow pupils' cruelty and the mysterious but forbidden attractions of sex into an imagined world centred on horse-racing and played out in the dusty backyard of his home, across the landscapes of the district, and the continent of Australia. An unsparing evocation of a Catholic childhood in a country town in the late 1940s, Tamarisk Row's lyrical prose is charged with the yearning, boredom, fear and fascination of boyhood. First published in Australia in 1974, and previously unpublished in the UK, Tamarisk Row is Gerald Murnane's debut novel, and in many respects his masterpiece.

Gerald Murnane was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1939. He is the author of eleven works of fiction, five of which will be published by And Other Stories in the coming years. He has won multiple high-profile awards across Australia, despite eschewing publicity and travel. He currently works as a bartender at his local golf course.