A Loving, Faithful Animal

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

On New Year's Eve, 1990, in a small Australian town, Ru's father, a Vietnam War veteran, has disappeared. This time Ru thinks he might be gone for good. A Loving, Faithful Animal is an incandescent portrait of one family searching for what is redeemable in the ruins of war.It is New Year's Eve 1990, in a small town in southeast Australia. Ru's father, Jack, one of thousands of Australians once conscripted to serve in the Vietnam War, has disappeared. This time Ru thinks he might be gone for good. As rumors spread of a huge black cat stalking the landscape beyond their door, the rest of the family is barely holding on. Ru's sister, Lani, is throwing herself into sex, drugs, and dangerous company. Their mother, Evelyn, is escaping into memories of a more vibrantyouth. And meanwhile there is Les, Jack's inscrutable brother, who seems to move through their lives like a ghost, earning both trust and suspicion.A Loving, Faithful Animal is an incandescent portrait of one family searching for what may yet be redeemable from the ruins of war. Tender, brutal, and heart-stopping in its beauty, this novel marks the arrival in the United States of Josephine Rowe, the winner of the 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Prize and one of Australia's most extraordinary young writers.