The Deep Field

One of Australia's "most ambitious and talented younger writers" (Sydney Morning Herald), delivers a gripping novel about a young woman's emotional awakening against the backdrop of global conflict and political chaosJames Bradley exploded onto the literary landscape in 1999 with the publication of his award-winning debut novel, Wrack. With his new novel, The Deep Field, Bradley demonstrates that he deserves the praise of reviewers who have compared him to Michael Ondaatje and Salman Rushdie.

The Deep Field introduces us to a brilliant young photographer named Anna Frazier, whose latest project is a photographic study of shell fossils called ammonites. At a museum in Sydney she meets Seth La Marque, a blind paleontologist who senses that Anna is hiding something from her past that has wounded her and made her shut down her emotions. Slowly, as they become friends and then lovers, Anna reveals her tumultuous and obsessive love affair with a Hong Kong-based financier and the painful ing that left her drained and empty. At the same time, her twin brother, Daniel, disappeared in China during a period of incredible upheaval and chaos, and Anna feels her life is on hold until she can find him. Set just over a decade from now, The Deep Field portrays a world very much like the present, yet subtly and unsettlingly different. At once steely and compassionate, it weaves elements of photography, science, and philosophy into a meditation on love, time, and loss.