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Nate Monk is Kieran's father. He's a single parent of a 'differently wired' child, a talented musician who once stood on the cusp of success and a man resigned to a pragmatic life of responsibility over opportunity. Both share the scarred aftermath of the Infernal Day.
On a perfect autumn April noon five-and-a-half years before, wife and mother Felicity died saving her only child from a raging house fire. Although Kieran's inadvertent hand was complicit in the tragedy, Nate refused to apportion blame. The tragic circumstances of the blaze, however, constituted a secret that a fearful father dared not share with his 'different' son. But now, as the burning forests of nearby Pendarra Hill fill the sky with smoke and the TV screen with concern, Kieran will discover the devastating truth. And driven by a desire to make amends for the 'stupid little kid' of half a decade before, he will disappear into the night.
About The Author
Darren Groth is the author of MVP - Most Valuable Potential and The Umbilical Word.
Darren Groth has been around for a while as an author but it has been
hard to track down his books. That is a shame because his latest novel,
Kindling,
is an absolute stunner.
Kindling is
a one-sit read. Read the first twenty pages and you have no choice but
to stay put until the end. Then you will be lending the book to a
friend, because you are going to definitely have to talk about it.
The story is set on a scorcher of a day in a suburb backing onto the
bush. A fire is bearing down on the community. Our two protagonists are
Kieran and Nate. Mr Incredible also has quite a role to play.
Ten-year-old Kieran is autistic and bears the scars of a house fire in
which his mother died. Nate is his dad, whose days of chart success
with his band have been put aside. His life now is Kieran.
Groth lets the story unfold in the alternating voices of father and
son. One afternoon. Four hours which change everything. Groth’s
strength is his ability to switch seamlessly between father and son,
each character speaking authentically and utterly truthfully. This is
not completely new territory of course. There are shades of Mark
Haddon’s The Curious Incident of
the Dog in the Night-Time. It is also reminiscent in parts
of Scot Gardner’s Burning Eddy.
However, Groth does chart territory that is uniquely his own – and he
has a superb sense of pace and timing.
Kindling is
one of the books that you could put into the hands of anyone over the
age of fifteen. I do think the publishers have missed an
opportunity with this one however. They should be selling it with a
bonus box of tissues.
ISBN: 9780733625022
ISBN-10: 0733625029
Audience:
General
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 260
Published: 1st July 2010
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Dimensions (cm): 20.8 x 13.8
x 1.9
Weight (kg): 0.27
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