The Landscape of Desire
Kevin Rabalais
‘Landscape of Desire is a stunning debut and an impressive attempt to give our colonial history some mythic resonance … nearly brilliant.’
Mary Vernon, Townsville Bulletin
Several months have passed since the legendary explorers Burke and Wills disappeared into the desert and their whereabouts remain a mystery. Now, a search party has assembled to rescue them. Meanwhile, two other men are wandering lost in the outback: one on the verge of reaching safety; the other, broken and trapped at the heart of the continent with an Aboriginal tribe as his only hope of survival. And back in the city an actress, star of the stage in Melbourne and Sydney, longs for the return of Burke and Wills for personal reasons that will only gradually become apparent.
Loosely based on the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition, The Landscape of Desire re-imagines the lives of the key players in this historic event, and weaves them into a narrative that spans continents and decades. Written in mesmerizing prose, The Landscape of Desire slowly yields up its own secrets.
With echoes of Heart of Darkness and The English Patient, it is a stunning debut novel of love and identity, desire and death, set in rapidly changing yet still unknown Australia.
Reviews
‘Immediately we are transported through the minutiae of the explorers’ treasured items into 19th century life … the book’s expansive, rhetorical quality is well suited to the tragic nature of the Burke and WIlls story.'
Johanna Leggatt, Sun Herald
‘Fact or fiction, this is a moving look at a remarkable chapter in our history.’
Cecily Ryan, Daily Telegraph
» All reviews for this title‘Kevin Rabalais’s The Landscape of Desire deeply impressed me. The elegant lyricism of his prose about a harsh land and the grisly end to the Burke and Wills expedition is finely judged.’
Robert Dessaix, The Sydney Morning Herald
