Limberlost has won Arnott The Age fiction book of the year, an award he won two years ago for his second novel, The Rain Heron. Anott said he was ‘pretty blown away’ by winning.

Arnott’s writing has understated elegance and lilts to poetic rhythms. Its beauty hides an emotional punch made more powerful by its slow reveal. This is the story of Ned West, an adolescent boy trying to navigate his present and find his future.

Ned’s father runs an apple orchard outside Beaconsfield in rural Tasmania. World War II has begun and Ned’s older brothers, Bill and Toby, have signed up. Ned’s left with his taciturn father and a sharp-edged sister, Maggie. On the neighbouring farm lives his best friend, the talkative Jackbird, whose younger sister, Callie, patrols the paddocks like a parade ground, with a shotgun cocked on her shoulder.

Read our full review of Limberlost

Read reviews for Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron

FROM THE AUTHOR

My grandfather Bruce grew up on an orchard in the Tamar Valley north of Launceston in the thirties and forties. He used to tell me stories of that childhood – of hunting rabbits, of adventures on the water, of a father who’d survived both Gallipoli and the Somme, of brothers at war, of a life surrounded by animals and trees and watery horizons. To him, they were ordinary anecdotes, but to me they felt unknowable, almost mythical. Like tales from another world.

Later, I became a writer. A few books into my career, it made sense to try to wrangle his stories into something like a novel. He was glad I was writing this book. He insisted on only one thing: ‘Just don’t put any of that magical realism stuff in there. The story’s good enough on its own.’

Bruce died last year. He was 92. I am sad he’ll never read this, because I believe I’ve done what he asked. There’s no magical realism in these pages, but I hope some magic remains in the elements of a life I’ve tried to assemble here, and the wild world that hosted it. I hope I’ve done this story justice;

I hope it’s good enough on its own.

— Robbie Arnott

Listen to Robbie Arnott talk about Limberlost on ABC Hobart here.