Black Saturday. February 7, 29.
Roger Wood is the cop on duty at Kinglake when the most devastating fire in the nationșs history roars through the ranges onto his beat. His task is to defend his town against the colossus that threatens to destroy it.
And, over the course of one nightmarish day, that is what he will do. Even at the risk of his own life.
Even after he receives the dreadful phone call telling him his own wife and kids are caught on the front line of the inferno.
Adrian Hyland is the award-winning author of Diamond Dove and Gunshot Road. He lives in St Andrews, north-east of Melbourne, and teaches at LaTrobe University.
Kinglake-35 was highly commended in the WA Premiers Books Awards, 211.ȘA masterpiece of storytellingȦThe central characters in this special book emerge as Victoria Cross heroes in the heart of a bush community.ș Kerry OșBrien
What sets Kinglake-35 apart is its strong, agile storytelling ȓ particularly Hylandșs skill for weaving together small, telling details with big-picture concerns like climate change, weather pattern complexity, the failings of fire management policy and Australiașs historical relationship with fireȦș Meg Mundell, Readings
ȘEvery Australian, both rural and urban, should read this book. Adrian Hyland pulls no punches in describing the harrowing consequences of living on the planetșs driest and most fire-prone continent, and his account of the disastrous Black Saturday fires is a story of courage, dread and fallibility that will never leave you.ș Cate Kennedy
ȘIșve been waiting for a writer to look Black Saturday in the eye ever since the flames died down and, finally, Adrian Hylandșs done it. In this compelling and moving book, Hyland has captured the character of a town caught, quite literally, in a fireball.ș Anna Krien
ȘKinglake-35 is about more than Black Saturday. Itșs about families and communities, the vital nature of ecology and geology; itșs about the genesis of life itself. And while there are too many deaths in this saddest of tales, for the lucky ones the outcome was redemption.ș Lincoln Hall
