In Keeping Faith the innocence and certainties of childhood are delicately tested against the realities of adult life. Josh and Gracie grow up in a working class world centred on the values of faith and family. Both cherish their father, a lay preacher, and their mother, but for Josh the complex secrets, doubts and subtleties of the world do not allow for certainty. In adulthood he works as a labour ward attendant, his younger sister Gracie as a nurse on a remote mission station in Papua New Guinea. While Josh’s conviction falters, the unfailing faith of his sister leads to tragic consequences. As events move between 1975 and 1994, between a family drama in outer suburban Melbourne and a tribal rebellion in Melanesia, faith and doubt become entwined.
In the spirit of the work of Tim Winton, Keeping Faith is a remarkable novel about the beauty and disappointments of childhood, family and belief, about losing faith and finding love.
‘Subtle and finely crafted. A novel of intellectual and emotional intensity.’
Steven Carroll, author of The Time We Have Taken
Mengenai Pengarang
Roger Averill lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he works as a freelance researcher, editor and writer. Over the past decade he has been involved in the production of numerous publications. His forthcoming novel, Keeping Faith, was well received in the Vogel Literary Award. In the late 1990s Roger wrote a doctoral thesis about sociological readings of biographies and has since published articles in a number of international journals. Stemming from this work, he has an agreement with the eminent Australian author Randolph Stow to one day write his authorised biography. Boy He Cry: An Island Odyssey is his first full length work of non-fiction.