All our shimmering skies : a novel

Title:

Author:

Summary:

"Darwin, 1942. As Japanese bombs rain down on her hometown, newly orphaned Molly Hook looks to the skies and runs for her life. Inside a duffel bag, she carries a stone heart and a map that will lead her to Longcoat Bob, the deep-country sorcerer whom she believes cursed her family. Accompanying her are the most unlikely traveling companions: Greta, a razor-tongued actress, and Yukio, a Japanese fighter pilot who's abandoned his post. With messages from the skies above to guide them towards treasure, but foes close on their trail, the trio will encounter the beauty and vastness of the Northern Territory and survive in ways they never thought possible. A story about the gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth, and secrets we bury inside ourselves, Trent Dalton's brilliantly imagined novel is an odyssey of true love and grave danger, of darkness and light, of bones and blue heavens. It is a love letter to Australia and an ode to the art of looking up--a buoyant and magical tale, filled to the brim with warmth, wit, and wonder."-- FantasticFiction.com.

General Note:

"Originally published in Australia in 2020 by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited"--Title page vers.

Edition:

First Harper Perennial edition ; First US edition

Physical Description:

434 pages ; 21 cm

Subject Term:

Orphans -- Fiction.

Actresses -- Fiction.

Air pilots -- Fiction.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Australia -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Harper Perennial,

Publication Date:

2021

2020

ISBN:

9780063075610

Publication Information:

New York, NY : Harper Perennial, 2021.

Call Number:

DALTON

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003509158	Adult Fiction	DALTON Trent	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

From the internationally bestselling and beloved author of the critically acclaimed Boy Swallows Universe, a mesmerizing, uplifting novel of adventure and unlikely friendships in World War II Australia--calling to mind The Wizard of Oz as directed by Baz Luhrmann.

Darwin, 1942. As Japanese bombs rain down on her hometown, newly orphaned Molly Hook looks to the skies and runs for her life. Inside a duffel bag, she carries a stone heart and a map that will lead her to Longcoat Bob, the deep-country sorcerer whom she believes cursed her family. Accompanying her are the most unlikely traveling companions: Greta, a razor-tongued actress, and Yukio, a Japanese fighter pilot who's abandoned his post.

With messages from the skies above to guide them towards treasure, but foes close on their trail, the trio will encounter the beauty and vastness of the Northern Territory and survive in ways they never thought possible.

A story about the gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth, and secrets we bury inside ourselves, Trent Dalton's brilliantly imagined novel is an odyssey of true love and grave danger, of darkness and light, of bones and blue heavens. It is a love letter to Australia and an ode to the art of looking up--a buoyant and magical tale, filled to the brim with warmth, wit, and wonder.

Author Notes

Trent Dalton is the author of Beatiing the Odds which made the Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing 2015 shortlist. His most recent book is entitled Boy Swallows Universe (June 2018)

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Dalton (Boy Swallows Universe) delivers a spellbinding saga of survival and transformation in WWII Australia. Before seven-year-old Molly Hook's mother dies, she makes Molly promise to make her heart as rock-hard as her surroundings--adding that Molly can always find her up in the sky, "where the best gifts come from." In the first of many fabulist moments, Molly's grandfather Tom Berry's gold-prospecting pan appears as if fallen from the clouds; it's inscribed with riddles that will guide her to an Aboriginal elder, Longcoat Bob, who the family believed had cursed them for Tom's theft of gold from Bob's ancestral lands. Molly excitedly takes it home, where her hard-drinking gold hunter turned gravedigger father, Horace, slugs her in the jaw and her uncle Aubrey throws away the pan, behavior Molly attributes to the curse. Five years after her mother's death, a Japanese bombing raid kills Horace and destroys their house, and Molly flees with Aubrey's girlfriend in search of Longcoat Bob. Along the way, a stranded Japanese fighter pilot becomes their protector, and the three continue on a quest marked by trials and wonders while being pursued by Aubrey. Dalton provides exquisite descriptions of deserts, waterfalls, mazes of stone monoliths, and Aboriginal cave paintings, and creates a courageous, unsentimental heroine in Molly. This is a wonder. (July)

Library Journal Review

In a harsh and magical novel set in Darwin, Australia, at the start of World War II, Molly, a gravedigger's daughter, has inherited her mother's dreamy disposition. Her mother died when Molly was seven, leaving her to fend for herself in a 20th-century Dickensian environment, cared for by her brutal, heavily drinking father Horace, and often her equally drunken and brutal uncle Aubrey. The family is also reputed to have been cursed by Longcoat Bob, an Aboriginal shaman whose gold was possibly stolen by her prospector grandfather. Molly's only escapes are her imagination and the poetry books in her late mother's library. After the Japanese bomb Darwin, killing Horace, Molly sets off to find Longcoat Bob to ask him to remove the alleged curse. She's joined by Greta, a German actress and sometimes exotic dancer, and eventually by Yukio, a gentle-spirited Japanese pilot who crashes his plane rather than continue to kill. As they venture ever deeper into the outback, their journey takes on mythic proportions. VERDICT In this follow-up to Dalton's LJ best-booked debut, Boy Swallows Universe, goodness, hope, and a bit of magic are pitted against gritty realities. The result is unquestionably appealing, though somewhat diminished by a number of characters who seem like period movie clichés.--Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA