The Riders

Tim Winton depicts a desperate man’s odyssey across Europe in search of the missing wife he now realises he barely knew. "If you're looking for a book that bolts you to your seat, this is it" (Sunday Age).After Scully has a ghostly vision of twenty horsemen, his wife, Jennifer, suddenly and mysteriously vanishes. Scully’s seven-year-old daughter, Billy, may have witnessed Jennifer’s disappearance but has been rendered mute by the ordeal. Clues lead Scully and his daughter on a quest that covers Greece, Italy, Paris, and Amsterdam, as he slowly accepts his failure along with the idea that some things will never be known."The Riders is about the painful process of learning to live without illusions, without false anticipation... Furious and vital... a celebration - of the messiness of life and of the force of good fiction." - The Guardian"At its breaking heart is a fearless exploration of how well we can ever really know each other... Winton is not a great Australian novelist; he is a great novelist full stop." - The TimesTim Winton has published over 20 books for adults and children. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). Active in the environmental movement, he is the Patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society.

After traveling through Europe for two years, Scully and his wife Jennifer wind up in Ireland, and on a mystical whim of Jennifer's, buy an old farmhouse which stands in the shadow of a castle. While Scully spends weeks alone renovating the old house, Jennifer returns to Australia to liquidate their assets. When Scully arrives at Shannon Airport to pick up Jennifer and their seven-year-old daughter, Billie, it is Billie who emerges — alone. There is no note, no explanation, not so much as a word from Jennifer, and the shock has left Billie speechless. In that instant, Scully's life falls to pieces.

The Riders is a superbly written and a darkly haunting story of a lovesick man in a vain search for a vanished woman. It is a powerfully accurate account of marriage today, of the demons that trouble relationships, of resurrection found in the will to keep going, in the refusal to hold on, to stand still. The Riders is also a moving story about the relationship between a loving man and his tough, bright daughter.

Publishers Weekly

Elements of a psychological suspense thriller and a gut-wrenching love story blend into this irresistible narrative, Winston's 13th novel, written in supple, lyrically charged prose. Australian expatriate Scully is a working-class bloke with a ``wonky eye... Brillopad hair'' and a ``severely used face.'' All the more wonder that beautiful, upper-middle-class Jennifer married him eight years ago. The adoring Scully has since followed her every whim, trailing along with her and their seven-year-old daughter, Billie, across Europe. Jennifer decided they must buy the tiny, dilapidated cottage in rural Ireland that Scully now cleans and rebuilds with the demon energy of his love while awaiting his wife and child to return from Australia, where Jennifer has gone to sell their possessions. On the night before their arrival, Scully sees a troupe of ghost horsemen, their torches burning, arrayed before the ancient castle keep on his neighbor's land. The next day, a traumatized, mute Billie deplanes without her mother, who has somehow disappeared at Heathrow airport. To find her, Scully and Billie begin an odyssey to all the places they lived while Jennifer was aspiring to fulfill what she considered her artistic potential. Gradually, Scully realizes that there are things about Jennifer he could never admit to himself; tormented by fear, desperation and heartache, he almost loses his sanity. Precocious Billie, who knows things her father will never understand, uses the power of her love to redeem them both. Perhaps Billie is a little too wise and resilient and Scully not credibly protective of her welfare, dragging her into perilous situations. But Winton propels the narrative so quickly that one accepts Scully's obsession and Billie's compliance. Winton is particularly deft in creating the supporting characters in this powerful drama, all of whom assume vividly dimensional form. He also conjures up settings with a magician's hand: the frigid, barren Irish countryside; Australia drowsing in summer heat; a Greek island shorn of tourists in winter; Paris, Florence, Amsterdam. His terse, lyrical descriptions, the throbbing energy of his prose, can illuminate a scene like a lightning bolt, cut like a knife or wring the heart. Readers who met this stunning Australian writer in Cloudstreet or That Eye, the Sky, will find his talent fiercely honed. Author tour. (June)

An "intelligent...artfully rendered" ( The New York Times Book Review ) exploration of marriage and the rich relationship that can exist between father and daughter, The Riders is a gorgeously wrought novel from the award-winning author Tim Winton. After traveling through Europe for two years, Scully and his wife Jennifer wind up in Ireland, and on a mystical whim of Jennifer's, buy an old farmhouse which stands in the shadow of a castle. While Scully spends weeks alone renovating the old house, Jennifer returns to Australia to liquidate their assets. When Scully arrives at Shannon Airport to pick up Jennifer and their seven-year-old daughter, Billie, it is Billie who emerges—alone. There is no note, no explanation, not so much as a word from Jennifer, and the shock has left Billie speechless. In that instant, Scully's life falls to pieces. The Riders is a superbly written and a darkly haunting story of a lovesick man in a vain search for a vanished woman. It is a powerfully accurate account of marriage today, of the demons that trouble relationships, of resurrection found in the will to keep going, in the refusal to hold on, to stand still. The Riders is also a moving story about the relationship between a loving man and his tough, bright daughter. After traveling through Europe for two years, Scully and his wife Jennifer wind up in Ireland, and on a mystical whim of Jennifer's, buy an old farmhouse which stands in the shadow of a castle. While Scully spends weeks alone renovating the old house, Jennifer returns to Australia to liquidate their assets. When Scully arrives at Shannon Airport to pick up Jennifer and their seven-year-old daughter, Billie, it is Billie who emerges -- alone. There is no note, no explanation, not so much as a word from Jennifer, and the shock has left Billie speechless. In that instant, Scully's life falls to pieces. The Riders is a superbly written and a darkly haunting story of a lovesick man in a vain search for a vanished woman. It is a powerfully accurate account of marriage today, of the demons that trouble relationships, of resurrection found in the will to keep going, in the refusal to hold on, to stand still. The Riders is also a moving story about the relationship between a loving man and his tough, bright daughter Fred Scully waits at the arrival gate of an international airport, anxious to see his wife and seven-year-old daughter. After two years in Europe they are finally settling down. He sees a new life before them, a stable outlook, and a cottage in the Irish countryside that he's renovated by hand. He's waited, sweated on this reunion. He does not like to be alone - he's that kind of man. The flight lands, the glass doors hiss open, and Scully's life begins to go down in flames. An Australian whose wife left him goes looking for her across Europe, accompanied by his daughter. The man is Fred Scully, a working-class bloke and a loyal husband, the wife is Jennifer, upper-middle and still trying to find herself, while the daughter is Billy, 7. In the process of the search, love grows between father and daughter. By the author of That Eye, the Sky