Bluebird

'Filled with biting observations about our culture and our families so starkly insightful, they make you gasp.' Charlotte Wood

A stunning new novel about longing, regret, redemption and the terrible legacy of decades of secrets buried in an Australian beachside suburb.

A house perched impossibly on a cliff overlooking the stunning, iconic Bluebird Beach. Prime real estate, yet somehow not real estate at all, The Lodge is, like those who live in it, falling apart.

Gordon Grimes has become the accidental keeper of this last relic of an endangered world. He lives in The Lodge with his wife Kelly who is trying to leave him, their son Ben who will do anything to save him, his goddaughter Lou who is hiding from her own troubles, and Leonie, the family matriarch who has trapped them here for their own good.

But Gordon has no money and is running out of time to conserve his homeland. His love for this way of life will drive him, and everyone around him, to increasingly desperate risks. In the end, what will it cost them to hang onto their past? The the secrets they've been keeping and the lies they've been telling can't save them now.

Savage, funny, revelatory and brilliant, Bluebird exposes the hollowness of the stories told to glorify a dying culture and shows how those who seek to preserve these myths end up being crushed by them.

'An iconically Aussie story, with characters we all relate to. Warmth, sadness, love, loss ... it's all there. Just brilliant!' Adam Gilchrist, former Test cricketer and beach-goer

'Bluebird is engrossing: a sharp-witted and exact satire about our contemporary world and our contemporary families ... Malcolm Knox's writing now has such confidence and clarity that he is exhilarating to read. He's a maestro, and I didn't want Bluebird to end.' Christos Tsiolkas, author of Damascus and The Slap

'If Winton is an aria, Knox is early Rolling Stones.' The Guardian