The Lucky Galah is an utterly engaging and beguiling new novel

The Lucky Galah
by Tracy Sorensen
Review by Ben Hunter

It’s 1964 and a remote dot of a north Western Australian town has become the clandestine home to an enormous radio satellite dish, a mission-critical piece of NASA hardware that will be a lifeline between Houston and the moon-bound Apollo rockets. This dish beams communications directly into the mind of this novel’s narrator. That narrator is a pet galah named Lucky.

This is the refreshingly unique set-up of The Lucky Galah, an utterly engaging and beguiling new novel from Tracy Sorensen. Her screeching pink bird is the reader’s portal into a red dust town where the social/political revolution of the 1960s is a long way away and the ideas expressed within the pages of Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country don’t really feel within grasp. It’s a book that doesn’t just evoke nostalgia but asks us to question the way we live today. I won’t sift through the ins and outs of this story because I want you to enjoy its subtleties as I have.

This book is a bundle of Australian kook ready to disarm, charm and move its readers. Embrace it. Learn more.

The Lucky Galah

by Tracy Sorensen

DescriptionProduct Details
It's 1969 and a remote coastal town in Western Australia is poised to play a pivotal part in the moon landing. Perched on the red dunes of its outskirts looms the great Dish: a relay for messages between Apollo 11 and Houston, Texas. Crouched around a single grainy set, radar technician Evan Johnson and his colleagues stare at the screen, transfixed, as Armstrong takes that first small step.

I was in my cage of course, unheard, underestimated, biscuit crumbs on my beak. But fate is a curious thing. For just as Evan Johnson's story is about to end (and perhaps with a giant leap), my story prepares to take flight...

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About the Contributor

Ben Hunter

Ben is Booktopia's dedicated fiction and children's book specialist. He spends his days painstakingly piecing together beautiful catalogue pages and gift guides for the website. At any opportunity, he loves to write warmly of the books that inspire him. If you want to talk books, find him tweeting at @itsbenhunter