Book cover for Eyrie

Synopsis

Details

23 April 2015
256 pages
9781447253471
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

Often extremely funny . . . Some readers will be surprised that a novel from the twice-Booker-shortlisted author takes place around a tower block, so successfully has he made himself the poet laureate of the wide sky, the red dirt, the salt and thick estuarine mud of Western Australia in his previous work. But it is in many ways the logical end point of tensions between the natural world and human exploitation of it that have been present in his work from the beginning . . . Winton is in absolute command of his story. The pace and tension is unremitting, the language unfussy while retaining Winton's trademark lyricism . . . After reading this novel, I had a feeling of bruised revelation.
Winton has always been good on estrangement and never more so than here . . . [he] is also terrific on physical sensation. Here, as a befuddled Keely tries to negotiate the baking-hot streets assailed by impressions on all sides, it's almost as if he's surfing on dry land . . . Time and again I found myself panting admiringly at Winton's imagery . . . one hell of a ride.
In Tom Keely, Winton has created a narrator whose misfortune and fury is matched by a merciless and mordant wit, and Winton has rarely been funnier . . . Eyrie is a superb novel: a novel of disillusionment and redemption, loss and beauty, the taking of responsibility and the overcoming of disappointment.
A heartfelt story of disillusionment and salvation . . . Winton has a raptor's eye for telling images and tender acts . . . The rhythmic, highly wrought prose [is] undercut by bathos and mordant wit.