The Railwayman's Wife

An acclaimed, heartbreaking novel of love and loss, and the healing power of memory and words.

WINNER, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, People's Choice Award

WINNER, Colin Roderick Award

'A tender portrait of a marriage and the poetry and grief it contains. A beautiful, dreamy, melancholy book.' Gail Jones, author of Five Bells

In a small town on the land's edge, in the strange space at a war's end, a widow, a poet and a doctor each try to find their own peace, and their own new story.

In Thirroul, in 1948, people chase their dreams through the books in the railway's library. Anikka Lachlan searches for solace after her life is destroyed by a single random act. Roy McKinnon, who found poetry in the mess of war, has lost his words and his hope. Frank Draper is trapped by the guilt of those his treatment and care failed on their first day of freedom. All three struggle with the same question: how now to be alive.

Written in clear, shining prose, with an eloquent understanding of the human heart, The Railwayman's Wife explores the power of beginnings and endings, and how hard it can be sometimes to tell them apart. It's a story of life, loss and what comes after; of connection and separation, longing and acceptance. Most of all, it celebrates love in all its forms, and the beauty of discovering that loving someone can be as extraordinary as being loved yourself.

A story that will break your heart with hope.

'The Railwayman's Wife illuminates the deepest places of the human heart.' - Debra Adelaide, author of The Household Guide to Dying

'An extraordinary light falls on every page of this tender and gripping story. The lives of a widow and a war poet, mending and dreaming in a tiny coastal village, reveal movingly a wider world of catastrophe, violence and beauty.' - Belinda Castles, author of Hannah and Emil