An audio book. Fred Scully, a 30 y.o. Australian who'd been odd-jobbing around Europe for 2 with his wife Jennifer and daughter Billie is doing up an 18th century Irish cottage that his wife impulsely decided to buy. No power or plumbing. He grew up on a farm. She gave up a good job (that she hated) to go to Europe. She'd written poetry in Paris and painted in Greece. She's expecting another child. Jennifer and Billie go back to Australia to sell their house. Fred befriends Pete the Post who helps with the work. Pete's brother Conner is an electrician who is killing himself with drink. 200m from the village is a gothic castle. When Fred goes to meet them at the airport, only Billie (7.5 years old, precocious) is there. She says nothing for hours. Fred finds out that Jennifer got as far as London. He guesses that she went to Greece, so off he goes.
She's not in Hydra where they stayed. A dog attacks Billie, wounding her face. Alex is found at the foot of a cliff. Fred's likely to be a suspect. He hires a boat to get him to the mainland through a storm, gets a ferry to Florence. On the ferry he comes to know Irma, who claims to have seen his wife. He receives a telegram telling him to be at the Tuileries, alone at noon on 23rd Dec, so off he goes to Paris. Waiting for the rendezvous he sees a hooded women approach then turn away. He chases in vain. Billie gets a fever so Fred chases some old Parisian contacts. They're unfriendly. Somehow his credit card becomes unvalid. He thinks Jennifer might have gone off with their money. She might have gone off with another woman. When he comes across Irma again he can't believe it's chance. He spends a night with her. Drunk, he sneaks off in the night with her cash. Billie has to look after him when he pops into Notre Dame's midnight Xmas mass n the way to the train station. In Amsterdam, following a hunch, he tries to find Parisian photographer Dominique's houseboat. He gets drunk and spends a night in a cell. Billie finds the address. The houseboat hasn't been visited for a while. It's shipping water. He finds a familiar jumper there. She finds photos, including ones of her. In the final chapter they're back in Ireland.
Until I read the reviews I didn't understand the significance of the title - the "Wild Hunt".
Billie's PoV gradually emerges. Winton can chain together short clauses of description or can let landscape gradually soak in. He uses "forlorn" and "plangent" rather too often. His style includes words of wisdom (in Ireland "every field a name, every path a stile. Everything possible had been tried out there. It wasn't the feeling you had looking out on his own land. In Australia you looked out and saw the possible, the space, the maybes;" "the only end some things have is the end you give them"; when he explores Amsterdam on Xmas morning there are "no crowds to hide in while he gets his bearings") and some imagery ("the mist hung on him like a bedwetter's blanket", "the world swung on its anchor").
Other reviews
- Kirkus reviews
- Good reads
- jud's jottings
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