Thicker Than Water

Richard Rossiter

When Marie D’Anger saw that look in Edy Baudin’s eye, she knew it was time to go home.

Marie D’Anger returns to the family home in south-west Australia after years of living in England, to a father whose destructive impulses have been curbed by a stroke, and a mother whose passivity she never understood.

Behind her is Edy Baudin and the deep love they shared before he left, suddenly and without explanation. Further back still is her father and his fraught relationships with his mother, brother and step-father. But when Edy follows Marie to Australia, her father’s shocking revelation brings hidden things to the surface.

This is quintessential Rossiter: an intense, poetic, family drama and psychological tragedy.

Praise for Thicker Than Water

Rossiter writes in parched and spartan prose, often with piercing psychological insight about love and trauama, avoidant behaviour and erotic confrontation ... [a] complex structure, its dramatic intensity and astutely rendered characters.

CAMERON WOODHEAD, SYDNEY MORNING HERALDM

 

The beautifully written Thicker Than Water takes readers on a journey ... Readers will find this novella hard to put down. The language is poetic and Rossiter has an uncanny ability to connect his readers with a deep truth that seldom reaches the surface in most of us. This novella is psychological drama at its very best.

WRITINGWA, THE WEST AUSTRALIAN

 

At once bold and suggestive, fierce and melancholy ... One of the most unusual narratives I’ve read for some time ... A beautifully crafted and beautifully written story of darkness and sadness and madness.

SUSAN MIDALIA

 

... there's a hard clarity, and almost brutal concision to the writing that adds to the shocking, cumulative power of the narrative. This both is and isn't an easy read.

WILLIAM YEOMAN, THE WEST AUSTRALIAN

 

Richard Rossiter has written a novella of such depth and power that is an undiluted joy to read. His vivid evocation of the West Australian coast must spring from his own experiences of living in a bush dwelling and writing full time. Thicker Than Water is an intense family drama that explores love’s transgressions across the generations.

MEREDITH JAFFE, THE HOOPLA

Book details

PUBLICATION DATE: 2014
FORMAT: Flexi-bound paperback
EXTENT: 140 pages
SIZE: 198 x 128 mm
ISBN: 9781742586052
RIGHTS: World
CATEGORY: Fiction, Richard Rossiter,