The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane, Allen & Unwin
The sun, a ball of burning orange, dominates like a powerful, all-seeing deity in this masterful tale of a how the disappearance of a young boy, lost on the great Flinders Ranges, tests a community. It is September 1883 and in the melting pot of cultures rubbing along in the South Australian country town of Fairly, there is a low hum of disquiet.
As the tale opens a vast dust storm kicks off, creating a shroud of gritty red. Minna Baumann is getting married to Constable Robert Manning when the rush of ruddy dirt comes through and six-yearold Denny, the youngest son of a local family, is out in the fields while his sisters attend the nuptials. When the wind calms he is gone.
As the town scrambles to search for the lad, every character has a story – from the Indigenous trackers to the Afghani cameleers, the shearers, schoolteachers, landowners and the pathetic local vicar. The hours tick over into days and Denny’s mother becomes increasingly distraught as her family and the local officials head off into the traditional ranges that surround the comparatively recent farming settlement in pursuit of much-loved Denny.
Newcomers – a Swedish artist with a charm we soon mistrust and his English wife – are also out there somewhere trying to capture the magic of a landscape they barely understand. In Swedish
