Jaxie dreads going home. His mum's dead. The old man bashes him without mercy, and he wishes he was an orphan. But no one's ever told Jaxie Clackton to be careful what he wishes for. In one terrible moment his life is stripped to little more than what he can carry and how he can keep himself alive.
There's just one person left in the world who understands him and what he still dares to hope for. But to reach her he'll have to cross the vast saltlands on a trek that only a dreamer or a fugitive would attempt. The Shepherd's Hut is a searing look at what it takes to keep love and hope alive in a parched and brutal world.
Barb takes care of the web orders here at Boffins, and is your contact for book club enquiries. She spends all her spare time curled up on the couch reading and for the last several years has reviewed books on the Afternoon Program on ABC radio Perth.
In my mind this new book from Tim Winton sits alongside Breath, his 2008 novel, of which the film version is about to be released. Both books are short and powerful. Both focus on a teenage boy, and are told in the first person. And both books deal in risk. Their settings however are quite different. Where Breath situated itself on and in the waters of the south west coast, The Shepherd’s Hut dwells inland.
Jaxie Clackton flees his home and heads north, hoping to hide out for a while and then go searching for the girl he loves. By the time he comes across Fintan MacGillis, an old man living on his own in an isolated cabin, Jaxie is not in great shape, and resigns himself to staying a while. Life has mostly taught Jaxie not to trust men, and he is instinctively suspicious of Fintan. But sometimes grace is to be found in the most unexpected of places.
