Tom Hope doesn't think he's much of a farmer, but he's doing his best. He can't have been much of a husband to Trudy, either, judging by her sudden departure. It's only when she returns, pregnant to someone else, that he discovers his surprising talent as a father. So when Trudy finds Jesus and takes little Peter away with her to join the holy rollers, Tom's heart breaks all over again.
Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic smalltown bookseller: the second Jew—and the most vivid person—Tom has ever met. He dares to believe they could make each other happy.
But it is 1968: twenty-four years since Hannah and her own little boy arrived at Auschwitz. Tom Hope is taking on a batttle with heartbreak he can barely even begin to imagine.
Robert Hillman has written a number of books including his 2004 memoir The Boy in the Green Suit, which won the National Biography Award, and Joyful, published by Text in 2014. He lives in Melbourne.
'A novel of great spirit and tenderness.' Carrie Tiffany
'Hillman's prose is a pleasure to read, elegantly alert to the paradox of strong feeling [and] full of poetry.' Australian on Joyful
'Counting against all [the] business is Hillman's gift for compelling characters, the elegance of his prose and his genius with inventive, surprising dialogue.' Saturday Paper, on Joyful
