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Days of Innocence and Wonder
When someone is taken away, what is left behind?
All her life, Till has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend and her tormented wondering about whether she could have stopped it.
When Till, now twenty-three, senses danger approaching again, she flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new life and home. But there is something menacing here too. Till must decide whether she can finally face down, even pursue, the darkness - or whether she'll flee once more and never stop running.
Both a reckoning with fear and loss, and a recognition of the power of belonging, Days of Innocence and Wonder is a richly textured, deeply felt new novel from one of Australia's finest writers.
All her life, Till has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend and her tormented wondering about whether she could have stopped it.
When Till, now twenty-three, senses danger approaching again, she flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new life and home. But there is something menacing here too. Till must decide whether she can finally face down, even pursue, the darkness - or whether she'll flee once more and never stop running.
Both a reckoning with fear and loss, and a recognition of the power of belonging, Days of Innocence and Wonder is a richly textured, deeply felt new novel from one of Australia's finest writers.
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First published October 31, 2023
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About the author
Lucy Treloar
5 books158 followersLucy Treloar was born in Malaysia and educated in Melbourne, England and Sweden. A graduate of the University of Melbourne and RMIT, Lucy is a writer and editor and has plied her trades both in Australia and in Cambodia, where she lived for a number of years.
Her short fiction has appeared in Sleepers, Overland, Seizure, and Best Australian Stories 2013 and her non fiction in The Age, Meanjin, Womankind and elsewhere. She won
the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific), the WAUM award, and has also been awarded an Asialink Fellowship to Cambodia and a Varuna Publishers' Fellowship.
Lucy’s debut novel, Salt Creek,was published by Picador (Pan Macmillan) in August 2015 and the UK, USA, CAN and Europe in 2017. It won the Matt Richell ABIA award for best new writer, the Dobbie Award for best debut, the Indie Award for best debut, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and the Readings Prize for best new writer.
Wolfe Island (Sept 2019) is her second novel.
Her short fiction has appeared in Sleepers, Overland, Seizure, and Best Australian Stories 2013 and her non fiction in The Age, Meanjin, Womankind and elsewhere. She won
the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific), the WAUM award, and has also been awarded an Asialink Fellowship to Cambodia and a Varuna Publishers' Fellowship.
Lucy’s debut novel, Salt Creek,was published by Picador (Pan Macmillan) in August 2015 and the UK, USA, CAN and Europe in 2017. It won the Matt Richell ABIA award for best new writer, the Dobbie Award for best debut, the Indie Award for best debut, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and the Readings Prize for best new writer.
Wolfe Island (Sept 2019) is her second novel.
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October 25, 2023
Days Of Innocence And Wonder is the third novel by award-winning, best-selling Australian author, Lucy Treloar. Even though it’s almost twenty years ago, the loss of her best friend and the belief that she failed her, still loom large in Till’s brain. When they were five, a man came to their special spot in the Brunswick kindergarten playground, and walked away with her friend, E.
In late 2021, when the lockdowns finally seem to be done with, and people are again out and about, Till (the name she has answered to since she was six) catches sight of someone who makes her uneasy enough to want to leave her parents’ home, to escape to the safety and anonymity of her car, to travel away from her home city. Her faithful black greyhound, Birdy comes along.
After some time travelling, sleeping in her car, and encounters with groups of homeless women, Till stumbles on Wirowie: “The main street was a ghost town, a film set with everyone gone, everyone dead, everyone forgotten, soon to arrive or recently departed, and everything left behind waiting, as unreal as that.”
She’s drawn to the defunct railway station, attracted by its architecture, its construction, and although “She was a city person and she’d moved to a ghost town, and the thought would not become more solid than that. But she felt more solid, like herself she supposed, though unfamiliar, not a person in costume. The sad growling anger that was part of her had moved off a little way, at least some of the time. She would not easily leave a place that had done that.”
She tries to stay under the radar, but of course she is noticed, her reception ranging from genuine welcome, to wary, to downright hostile. Her squatting in the station’s buildings becomes more, as she begins to repair and restore. She explores, she runs, she sings, and she makes friends, although not all her encounters are friendly. She works in the shop in nearby Oororoo, and sings at the Peterborough pub: she gets involved. “She’d started out so free and easy and now she was making lists and dreaming.”
But then, a series of incidents that instil fear into the women of the community, and Till realises: “Outsiders had brought nothing but destruction and sadness to this place. She had to include herself. She saw that now. Benign intent was no excuse, yet people cared about her, the very people she had brought harm to.”
In a story that examines the meaning of home and belonging, and coping with fear, grief and loss, Treloar also touches on domestic violence the abuse of power, homeless older women, and society’s tacit acceptance of the denial of responsibility for the theft of Country from Australia’s First Nations.
“…a mirror at her great-grandmother’s, which was foxed with age and small, and poorly lit except late in the afternoon when the sun hit it. It gave the illusion of revealing everything important about a person, and was inherently deceptive as all mirrors are in their way. Tilt the angle and anyone or anything might appear or disappear. It’s what the colonisers did: altered the angle, held themselves in a kind light.”
Readers familiar with Treloar’s work might expect gorgeous prose, and they won’t be disappointed. Below, some examples of her exquisite, breathtaking descriptions (so hard to limit the quotes): “It was just past dawn. the faintest haze hung in the air despite it being so dry, and the sun rushed across the grasses and red dirt, and the sky seemed to rise from the horizon like a flung sheet – blue silk, faded at the selvedge, billowing free” and “Ruined houses lay everywhere, empty-mouthed and hollow-eyes, sometimes fenced off and distant.”
A car yard: “The ancient cars were butted up like stonework and fabulously lit by the late sun. it turned their ice cream colours – duck egg blue, sherbet pink, dove grey, lilac rust – luminous and otherworldly. Their curious curved bonnets and sculptural prows made them seem more creature (an eagle, a tapir, a rhinoceros) than machine. They faced the road as if waiting to see what was coming or what show might be about to begin” and “When she sang, she mostly put on someone else, as if that other person was a coat, a suede jacket – vintage, something like that – which never felt like her: her size, her colour, her material, her look.”
“Talking with Tundra sometimes felt less like conversation than witnessing the world sliced in a different way, receiving something, absorbing something: knowledge, maybe insight…” and “The light all around was so thick it seemed as solid as water, swaying above the ground, trembling within bowls of trees, pouring along dry creek beds.” Treloar’s latest is beautifully crafted, topical, thought-provoking and incredibly moving: a must-read.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Macmillan Australia.
In late 2021, when the lockdowns finally seem to be done with, and people are again out and about, Till (the name she has answered to since she was six) catches sight of someone who makes her uneasy enough to want to leave her parents’ home, to escape to the safety and anonymity of her car, to travel away from her home city. Her faithful black greyhound, Birdy comes along.
After some time travelling, sleeping in her car, and encounters with groups of homeless women, Till stumbles on Wirowie: “The main street was a ghost town, a film set with everyone gone, everyone dead, everyone forgotten, soon to arrive or recently departed, and everything left behind waiting, as unreal as that.”
She’s drawn to the defunct railway station, attracted by its architecture, its construction, and although “She was a city person and she’d moved to a ghost town, and the thought would not become more solid than that. But she felt more solid, like herself she supposed, though unfamiliar, not a person in costume. The sad growling anger that was part of her had moved off a little way, at least some of the time. She would not easily leave a place that had done that.”
She tries to stay under the radar, but of course she is noticed, her reception ranging from genuine welcome, to wary, to downright hostile. Her squatting in the station’s buildings becomes more, as she begins to repair and restore. She explores, she runs, she sings, and she makes friends, although not all her encounters are friendly. She works in the shop in nearby Oororoo, and sings at the Peterborough pub: she gets involved. “She’d started out so free and easy and now she was making lists and dreaming.”
But then, a series of incidents that instil fear into the women of the community, and Till realises: “Outsiders had brought nothing but destruction and sadness to this place. She had to include herself. She saw that now. Benign intent was no excuse, yet people cared about her, the very people she had brought harm to.”
In a story that examines the meaning of home and belonging, and coping with fear, grief and loss, Treloar also touches on domestic violence the abuse of power, homeless older women, and society’s tacit acceptance of the denial of responsibility for the theft of Country from Australia’s First Nations.
“…a mirror at her great-grandmother’s, which was foxed with age and small, and poorly lit except late in the afternoon when the sun hit it. It gave the illusion of revealing everything important about a person, and was inherently deceptive as all mirrors are in their way. Tilt the angle and anyone or anything might appear or disappear. It’s what the colonisers did: altered the angle, held themselves in a kind light.”
Readers familiar with Treloar’s work might expect gorgeous prose, and they won’t be disappointed. Below, some examples of her exquisite, breathtaking descriptions (so hard to limit the quotes): “It was just past dawn. the faintest haze hung in the air despite it being so dry, and the sun rushed across the grasses and red dirt, and the sky seemed to rise from the horizon like a flung sheet – blue silk, faded at the selvedge, billowing free” and “Ruined houses lay everywhere, empty-mouthed and hollow-eyes, sometimes fenced off and distant.”
A car yard: “The ancient cars were butted up like stonework and fabulously lit by the late sun. it turned their ice cream colours – duck egg blue, sherbet pink, dove grey, lilac rust – luminous and otherworldly. Their curious curved bonnets and sculptural prows made them seem more creature (an eagle, a tapir, a rhinoceros) than machine. They faced the road as if waiting to see what was coming or what show might be about to begin” and “When she sang, she mostly put on someone else, as if that other person was a coat, a suede jacket – vintage, something like that – which never felt like her: her size, her colour, her material, her look.”
“Talking with Tundra sometimes felt less like conversation than witnessing the world sliced in a different way, receiving something, absorbing something: knowledge, maybe insight…” and “The light all around was so thick it seemed as solid as water, swaying above the ground, trembling within bowls of trees, pouring along dry creek beds.” Treloar’s latest is beautifully crafted, topical, thought-provoking and incredibly moving: a must-read.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Macmillan Australia.
December 14, 2023
Days Of Innocence And Wonder is the third novel by award-winning, best-selling Australian author, Lucy Treloar. The audio version is narrated by Gemma Carfi. Even though it’s almost twenty years ago, the loss of her best friend and the belief that she failed her, still loom large in Till’s brain. When they were five, a man came to their special spot in the Brunswick kindergarten playground, and walked away with her friend, E.
In late 2021, when the lockdowns finally seem to be done with, and people are again out and about, Till (the name she has answered to since she was six) catches sight of someone who makes her uneasy enough to want to leave her parents’ home, to escape to the safety and anonymity of her car, to travel away from her home city. Her faithful black greyhound, Birdy comes along.
After some time travelling, sleeping in her car, and encounters with groups of homeless women, Till stumbles on Wirowie: “The main street was a ghost town, a film set with everyone gone, everyone dead, everyone forgotten, soon to arrive or recently departed, and everything left behind waiting, as unreal as that.”
She’s drawn to the defunct railway station, attracted by its architecture, its construction, and although “She was a city person and she’d moved to a ghost town, and the thought would not become more solid than that. But she felt more solid, like herself she supposed, though unfamiliar, not a person in costume. The sad growling anger that was part of her had moved off a little way, at least some of the time. She would not easily leave a place that had done that.”
She tries to stay under the radar, but of course she is noticed, her reception ranging from genuine welcome, to wary, to downright hostile. Her squatting in the station’s buildings becomes more, as she begins to repair and restore. She explores, she runs, she sings, and she makes friends, although not all her encounters are friendly. She works in the shop in nearby Oororoo, and sings at the Peterborough pub: she gets involved. “She’d started out so free and easy and now she was making lists and dreaming.”
But then, a series of incidents that instil fear into the women of the community, and Till realises: “Outsiders had brought nothing but destruction and sadness to this place. She had to include herself. She saw that now. Benign intent was no excuse, yet people cared about her, the very people she had brought harm to.”
In a story that examines the meaning of home and belonging, and coping with fear, grief and loss, Treloar also touches on domestic violence the abuse of power, homeless older women, and society’s tacit acceptance of the denial of responsibility for the theft of Country from Australia’s First Nations.
“…a mirror at her great-grandmother’s, which was foxed with age and small, and poorly lit except late in the afternoon when the sun hit it. It gave the illusion of revealing everything important about a person, and was inherently deceptive as all mirrors are in their way. Tilt the angle and anyone or anything might appear or disappear. It’s what the colonisers did: altered the angle, held themselves in a kind light.”
Readers familiar with Treloar’s work might expect gorgeous prose, and they won’t be disappointed. Below, some examples of her exquisite, breathtaking descriptions (so hard to limit the quotes): “It was just past dawn. the faintest haze hung in the air despite it being so dry, and the sun rushed across the grasses and red dirt, and the sky seemed to rise from the horizon like a flung sheet – blue silk, faded at the selvedge, billowing free” and “Ruined houses lay everywhere, empty-mouthed and hollow-eyes, sometimes fenced off and distant.”
A car yard: “The ancient cars were butted up like stonework and fabulously lit by the late sun. it turned their ice cream colours – duck egg blue, sherbet pink, dove grey, lilac rust – luminous and otherworldly. Their curious curved bonnets and sculptural prows made them seem more creature (an eagle, a tapir, a rhinoceros) than machine. They faced the road as if waiting to see what was coming or what show might be about to begin” and “When she sang, she mostly put on someone else, as if that other person was a coat, a suede jacket – vintage, something like that – which never felt like her: her size, her colour, her material, her look.”
“Talking with Tundra sometimes felt less like conversation than witnessing the world sliced in a different way, receiving something, absorbing something: knowledge, maybe insight…” and “The light all around was so thick it seemed as solid as water, swaying above the ground, trembling within bowls of trees, pouring along dry creek beds.” Treloar’s latest is beautifully crafted, topical, thought-provoking and incredibly moving: a must-read.
In late 2021, when the lockdowns finally seem to be done with, and people are again out and about, Till (the name she has answered to since she was six) catches sight of someone who makes her uneasy enough to want to leave her parents’ home, to escape to the safety and anonymity of her car, to travel away from her home city. Her faithful black greyhound, Birdy comes along.
After some time travelling, sleeping in her car, and encounters with groups of homeless women, Till stumbles on Wirowie: “The main street was a ghost town, a film set with everyone gone, everyone dead, everyone forgotten, soon to arrive or recently departed, and everything left behind waiting, as unreal as that.”
She’s drawn to the defunct railway station, attracted by its architecture, its construction, and although “She was a city person and she’d moved to a ghost town, and the thought would not become more solid than that. But she felt more solid, like herself she supposed, though unfamiliar, not a person in costume. The sad growling anger that was part of her had moved off a little way, at least some of the time. She would not easily leave a place that had done that.”
She tries to stay under the radar, but of course she is noticed, her reception ranging from genuine welcome, to wary, to downright hostile. Her squatting in the station’s buildings becomes more, as she begins to repair and restore. She explores, she runs, she sings, and she makes friends, although not all her encounters are friendly. She works in the shop in nearby Oororoo, and sings at the Peterborough pub: she gets involved. “She’d started out so free and easy and now she was making lists and dreaming.”
But then, a series of incidents that instil fear into the women of the community, and Till realises: “Outsiders had brought nothing but destruction and sadness to this place. She had to include herself. She saw that now. Benign intent was no excuse, yet people cared about her, the very people she had brought harm to.”
In a story that examines the meaning of home and belonging, and coping with fear, grief and loss, Treloar also touches on domestic violence the abuse of power, homeless older women, and society’s tacit acceptance of the denial of responsibility for the theft of Country from Australia’s First Nations.
“…a mirror at her great-grandmother’s, which was foxed with age and small, and poorly lit except late in the afternoon when the sun hit it. It gave the illusion of revealing everything important about a person, and was inherently deceptive as all mirrors are in their way. Tilt the angle and anyone or anything might appear or disappear. It’s what the colonisers did: altered the angle, held themselves in a kind light.”
Readers familiar with Treloar’s work might expect gorgeous prose, and they won’t be disappointed. Below, some examples of her exquisite, breathtaking descriptions (so hard to limit the quotes): “It was just past dawn. the faintest haze hung in the air despite it being so dry, and the sun rushed across the grasses and red dirt, and the sky seemed to rise from the horizon like a flung sheet – blue silk, faded at the selvedge, billowing free” and “Ruined houses lay everywhere, empty-mouthed and hollow-eyes, sometimes fenced off and distant.”
A car yard: “The ancient cars were butted up like stonework and fabulously lit by the late sun. it turned their ice cream colours – duck egg blue, sherbet pink, dove grey, lilac rust – luminous and otherworldly. Their curious curved bonnets and sculptural prows made them seem more creature (an eagle, a tapir, a rhinoceros) than machine. They faced the road as if waiting to see what was coming or what show might be about to begin” and “When she sang, she mostly put on someone else, as if that other person was a coat, a suede jacket – vintage, something like that – which never felt like her: her size, her colour, her material, her look.”
“Talking with Tundra sometimes felt less like conversation than witnessing the world sliced in a different way, receiving something, absorbing something: knowledge, maybe insight…” and “The light all around was so thick it seemed as solid as water, swaying above the ground, trembling within bowls of trees, pouring along dry creek beds.” Treloar’s latest is beautifully crafted, topical, thought-provoking and incredibly moving: a must-read.
January 27, 2024
4.5 stars. Yes I did love this book but must also disclose a bias because my name has been used as a character, and yes it’s a good one. Thanks Lucy Treloar!
A steady building of tension and enough disorientation to keep you wondering if this is a reliable narrator. What has she really remembered from the kidnapping of her best friend? It is hard to imagine the long term trauma of witnessing an event like that and Treloar has skilfully woven this story. The outback noir is vividly depicted and firmly rooted in this quintessential Australian town, that is on the brink of non existence. It is the people and their shared history that bind this crumbling town and create a memorable story.
A steady building of tension and enough disorientation to keep you wondering if this is a reliable narrator. What has she really remembered from the kidnapping of her best friend? It is hard to imagine the long term trauma of witnessing an event like that and Treloar has skilfully woven this story. The outback noir is vividly depicted and firmly rooted in this quintessential Australian town, that is on the brink of non existence. It is the people and their shared history that bind this crumbling town and create a memorable story.
February 22, 2024
I absolutely loved this book. I was totally enthralled, absolutely engaged with Till's story, with the exploration of long term grief and survivor guilt. The setting was brilliantly portrayed and Treloar captured Melbourne's suburbs perfectly. Similarly, the rural town, once thriving on a railway line, now almost deserted. The characters were fascinating. The writing was sublime, full of wonderfully written observations of human behaviour. A slow beautifully told tale. And then it all went south! Oh my, why did we need the stereotypical outback noir crooked policeman, the strange and unbelievable events that exploded in a rapid telling reminiscent of a poorly written crime thriller?
5 stars and more for the first two thirds of the book, and 0 stars for the rest. Such a pity, it just didn't work for me.
5 stars and more for the first two thirds of the book, and 0 stars for the rest. Such a pity, it just didn't work for me.
December 26, 2023
Stunning writing. I finished the book and then immediately started rereading it so I could enjoy gathering the threads and clues Treloar has carefully placed throughout the novel. Wonderful descriptions of the South Australian landscape, great characters and I enjoyed the post pandemic setting.
April 30, 2024
I liked the story, but did not like the style at all. A seemingly omniscient narrator (but is it really?) who breaks the fourth wall from time to time. No thanks. Possibly exacerbated by the audiobook narrator, who - while having a pleasant enough voice - seemed to deliver almost every sentence with portent. I vacillated between exhaustion with the constant drama of it, and off with the fairies and having to rewind. A text edition may be better.
abandoned
November 14, 2023Read to page 137.
It's not a novel that works for me.
I don't rate books I don't finish.
It's not a novel that works for me.
I don't rate books I don't finish.
Read
April 6, 2024I didn’t get along with this novel.
I need to take some of the blame here. There’s an understated lyricism to the prose, punctuated by moments of intense drama, which requires you to pay attention. I wasn’t in a “pay attention” mood, and, as such, there were numerous times when I had to go back to the start of the paragraph to rediscover the narrative thread. But I had other issues with the novel, which go beyond my goldfish attention span, which I’ll get to.
Following lockdown in Melbourne, Till moves to the remote town of Wirowie in South Australia, where she moves into an abandoned railway station with her dog Birdy. We learn that when Till was five, she witnessed the abduction of her best friend, E. It’s a trauma she’s never truly recovered from. But now, two decades later, the women of Wirowie are being assaulted, a series of disturbing events that trigger dark memories for Till.
What Treloar does very well is capture what it was like in Melbourne during lockdown. She also handles Till’s mental anguish with sensitivity and compassion. I also loved that when Till reaches Wirowie, only one person, Bev, treats her rudely — and she has her reasons — everyone else in the town puts an arm around Till, even if they don’t know her story. It’s a sympathetic subversion of the “stranger comes to town” trope.
But the plot is where I have quibbles. It stops and starts as if Treloar doesn’t have her heart in it. Treloar is more interested in exploring Till and Wirowie’s past — both steeped in trauma (for Wirowie, it’s the decimation of First Nations people by European settlers exploring remote parts of the country during the mid-18th Century). These are weighty themes deserving of discussion. But it means that when the suspense elements kick in, they lack the same depth, not helped by several choices Treloar makes that pushed against my willing suspension of disbelief.
In a better mood, I might have liked this novel more, might have appreciated the quiet subtlety of the prose.
I need to take some of the blame here. There’s an understated lyricism to the prose, punctuated by moments of intense drama, which requires you to pay attention. I wasn’t in a “pay attention” mood, and, as such, there were numerous times when I had to go back to the start of the paragraph to rediscover the narrative thread. But I had other issues with the novel, which go beyond my goldfish attention span, which I’ll get to.
Following lockdown in Melbourne, Till moves to the remote town of Wirowie in South Australia, where she moves into an abandoned railway station with her dog Birdy. We learn that when Till was five, she witnessed the abduction of her best friend, E. It’s a trauma she’s never truly recovered from. But now, two decades later, the women of Wirowie are being assaulted, a series of disturbing events that trigger dark memories for Till.
What Treloar does very well is capture what it was like in Melbourne during lockdown. She also handles Till’s mental anguish with sensitivity and compassion. I also loved that when Till reaches Wirowie, only one person, Bev, treats her rudely — and she has her reasons — everyone else in the town puts an arm around Till, even if they don’t know her story. It’s a sympathetic subversion of the “stranger comes to town” trope.
But the plot is where I have quibbles. It stops and starts as if Treloar doesn’t have her heart in it. Treloar is more interested in exploring Till and Wirowie’s past — both steeped in trauma (for Wirowie, it’s the decimation of First Nations people by European settlers exploring remote parts of the country during the mid-18th Century). These are weighty themes deserving of discussion. But it means that when the suspense elements kick in, they lack the same depth, not helped by several choices Treloar makes that pushed against my willing suspension of disbelief.
In a better mood, I might have liked this novel more, might have appreciated the quiet subtlety of the prose.
Read
December 6, 2023It felt quite odd reading a Treloar (or in this case I listened) set in contemporary Australia and talking of the pandemic etc...but the sways of beautiful prose firmly lifted it into Treloar territory. And again she finds that wonderful balance between the literary and the thriller. Well worth a read.
July 6, 2024
A book that can't decide what it ought to be. The majority meanders through a reckoning with loss, then it unexpectedly and implausibly dips into thriller territory. A disorientated drag.
January 31, 2024
A beautifully written post-pandemic mystery that deals with the impact of loss and trauma.
November 30, 2023
I know I’m in the minority here but just couldn’t get into it. Seemed like a lot of words going nowhere.
January 10, 2024
Not a bad read, would prefer more dialogue and less long descriptions
November 13, 2023
I very much enjoyed Days of Innocence and Wonder by Lucy Treloar. It was unexpected in some ways. The backcover blurb made it sound like the kind of mystery I like to read, but it was deeper and more thought-provoking than I expected. A well-told story of loss, grief and guilt and what happens if they're left to fester.
This is the first book I've read by Treloar but I'll certainly be seeking out more. This was a thoughtful story. One of growth and healing. There's some social commentary but it's not heavy-handed, and this whole story is also imbued with strong sense of place. Treloar's prose and the narrative are ponderous... in a good way. Treloar and Till had me hooked and there I remained until the end, when the pace picks up again as the past is resolved.
Read my review here: https://www.debbish.com/books-literat...
This is the first book I've read by Treloar but I'll certainly be seeking out more. This was a thoughtful story. One of growth and healing. There's some social commentary but it's not heavy-handed, and this whole story is also imbued with strong sense of place. Treloar's prose and the narrative are ponderous... in a good way. Treloar and Till had me hooked and there I remained until the end, when the pace picks up again as the past is resolved.
Read my review here: https://www.debbish.com/books-literat...
January 27, 2024
I might be the outlier with my three star review, but I suspect it’s because it’s my first book by this author and it sounds like she has a particular style. The novel meanders for the first two thirds, suddenly picks up the pace for a few chapters, then the sprint is over and we’re back to meandering. When the pace was up I was completely engrossed, but it was too little for my taste. I found some of the plot lines a little hard to swallow. Why the man’s obsession with Till as an adult? Rob as offender was easy to believe but that plot line was over in paragraphs and not explored in any detail. And who was the narrator? I know that’s explained in the second last chapter, but very briefly and it didn’t completely fit. I’d have to go back and read the book to make sense of that voice as narrator, which I’m not inclined to do. There was lots to enjoy too, small town relationships, trust in police, role of grandparents in raising kids, fear of DoCS. And the writing was lovely. It just wasn’t the right journey for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 18, 2024
Lucy Treloar's "Days of Innocence and Wonder" explores the landscapes of memory and outback Australia. This isn't your typical crime thriller, though. The narration is tricky, with a first-person voice intruding intermittently, adding a layer of unreality that reflects the narrator's fractured mental state.
While the ending stretches credulity, to book is a moving reflection on history, trauma and recovery.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2
While the ending stretches credulity, to book is a moving reflection on history, trauma and recovery.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2
September 16, 2024
Too slow. I put it down at 50%. Intellectually I understand the exploration of loss, adjustment and moving on and other D&M issues, but the book didn't engage me; it began to drag.
Quoting Gay Harding "I know I’m in the minority here but just couldn’t get into it. Seemed like a lot of words going nowhere.
Quoting Gay Harding "I know I’m in the minority here but just couldn’t get into it. Seemed like a lot of words going nowhere.
May 16, 2024
Fabulous
July 26, 2024
3.5 stars. Till is haunted by the abduction and disappearance of her childhood friend E. when they are both 5. As a young woman she leaves COVID restricted Melbourne on a road trip and ends up at a small South Australian town Terowie. Here she begins to restore the railway station and then buys it . Much small town unfriendly behaviour and small town heart of gold behaviour and a sense of evil lurking . I found the story a bit far fetched although the effect on Till of the abduction is well developed. Much preferred ' Salt Creek'
December 30, 2023
The beautifully layered nature of narrative in this book is a joy to read. Its reckoning with the trope of the missing child in an Australia that shows itself to be decidedly not post-colonial shows the ways that we are all haunted and impeded by what has occurred in the past and not been resolved. Lucy Treloar's exquisite attention to the details of the natural world bring it to the fore, along with all that it means to a human to be 'locked down'. A lovely mediation of a read despite some of its themes of violence and loss, it lets the reader consider the ways in which we live in beauty and grace even as we experience trauma.
July 7, 2024
A book of wondering. What if you yourself made some other choices. The fantasy of rolling up to a small country town and staying. Australiana fantasy I’m calling it.
April 6, 2024
It’s funny to say I loved this book about a young woman whose life is affected by a childhood trauma, but I did. Misery memoir it is not.
Instead it’s a novel about a place, in outback South Australia, an old derelict railway station. Main character Till and her dog Birdy transform it and are transformed by it. The town is glorious, a funny thing to say about a small group of people struggling with tough lives. They’re a pretty unfriendly unforgiving lot, threatening at times. The author creates a clever plot with this combination of a solitary soul among such a community, with a sense of dread riding readers up and down.
Till as a character, and beautiful writing about physical location are two of the outstanding things in this truly exceptional novel.
Instead it’s a novel about a place, in outback South Australia, an old derelict railway station. Main character Till and her dog Birdy transform it and are transformed by it. The town is glorious, a funny thing to say about a small group of people struggling with tough lives. They’re a pretty unfriendly unforgiving lot, threatening at times. The author creates a clever plot with this combination of a solitary soul among such a community, with a sense of dread riding readers up and down.
Till as a character, and beautiful writing about physical location are two of the outstanding things in this truly exceptional novel.
January 11, 2024
Lucy Treloar is one of Australia’s finest current writers and her third novel, Days of Innocence and Wonder (Picador 2023) demonstrates her ability to experiment with different genres. Her first novel was historical fiction, her second dystopian fiction, and this recent novel is contemporary literary crime, moving between several timeframes. The one thing that all Treloar’s novels have in common is the beautiful literary writing. Every sentence is structured with care and thoughtfulness, every theme is explored with curiosity and compassion, and while there is always a page-turning plot, the focus of the narrative is on the characters and the detailed depictions of landscape and place.
Days of Innocence and Wonder is narrated by an unknown person; Treloar leaves it to the reader to guess who it might be. And although we may think it obvious, the conclusion offers some different suggestions, which casts the book in a different light.
The book centres on Till, now 23, who suffered a terrible trauma as a five-year-old when her childhood best friend, known only in Till’s mind as ‘E’, was abducted by a man who attempted to take both children. Till (also a new name, as her real name evokes too many painful memories), has lived for two decades with loss, guilt and sadness. She and her greyhound, Birdy, drive away from her past with not much of a plan except to get away from her memories. She finds sanctuary of a sort in a deserted outback town, where she shelters in an abandoned railway station and begins to construct the pieces of a new life. But when danger threatens not only her but the people she has become close to, Till must decide whether to keep running, or to finally face her worst fears, as her past comes closing in.
There are so many aspects of writing that Treloar does particularly well: the relationship between her protagonist and their dog (there is always a dog); the glorious and evocative description of place; the questioning of what has happened on that Country years and decades and centuries earlier; the construction of complex, flawed and complicated characters that seem as real as if they could jump out of the pages; a compelling plot that pulls the reader gently but steadily forward as the stakes become higher and the danger more implicit; her ability to reconcile readers with characters. These are common in all her books. The use of the unknown narrator who speaks to the reader directly in Days of Innocence and Wonder gives this book a different twist and Treloar pulls it off expertly. And the crime/s in this book too are thrilling and shocking and unexpected, despite being presented in a literary way.
If you haven’t yet discovered Lucy Treloar’s writing, you could start with any of her books, Salt Creek or Wolfe Island, or this most recent one, as they are all individual and very different. But I guarantee that once you read one, you will want to discover the others, as her writing style is so evocative and compelling and simply beautiful to read.
Days of Innocence and Wonder is narrated by an unknown person; Treloar leaves it to the reader to guess who it might be. And although we may think it obvious, the conclusion offers some different suggestions, which casts the book in a different light.
The book centres on Till, now 23, who suffered a terrible trauma as a five-year-old when her childhood best friend, known only in Till’s mind as ‘E’, was abducted by a man who attempted to take both children. Till (also a new name, as her real name evokes too many painful memories), has lived for two decades with loss, guilt and sadness. She and her greyhound, Birdy, drive away from her past with not much of a plan except to get away from her memories. She finds sanctuary of a sort in a deserted outback town, where she shelters in an abandoned railway station and begins to construct the pieces of a new life. But when danger threatens not only her but the people she has become close to, Till must decide whether to keep running, or to finally face her worst fears, as her past comes closing in.
There are so many aspects of writing that Treloar does particularly well: the relationship between her protagonist and their dog (there is always a dog); the glorious and evocative description of place; the questioning of what has happened on that Country years and decades and centuries earlier; the construction of complex, flawed and complicated characters that seem as real as if they could jump out of the pages; a compelling plot that pulls the reader gently but steadily forward as the stakes become higher and the danger more implicit; her ability to reconcile readers with characters. These are common in all her books. The use of the unknown narrator who speaks to the reader directly in Days of Innocence and Wonder gives this book a different twist and Treloar pulls it off expertly. And the crime/s in this book too are thrilling and shocking and unexpected, despite being presented in a literary way.
If you haven’t yet discovered Lucy Treloar’s writing, you could start with any of her books, Salt Creek or Wolfe Island, or this most recent one, as they are all individual and very different. But I guarantee that once you read one, you will want to discover the others, as her writing style is so evocative and compelling and simply beautiful to read.
November 27, 2023
‘Names matter. That is always true.’
As a young child, Till witnessed the abduction of a friend. Ever since she has wondered whether she could have done more to stop it. Till refers to her friend as E, unable to say her name, and no longer uses her own childhood name. Till is now twenty-three and while she lived with her parents during the pandemic lockdowns, the lockdowns are over and Till senses danger. She and her dog Birdy leave, in search of safety.
In a near deserted town called Wirowie, Till finds a place where she is comfortable. With the help of Birdy and some of the locals she gradually settles, building a new life. But Wirowie has its own secrets, and Till’s trauma is never far from her consciousness. A series of incidents involving other women in Wirowie ending with a message from another woman who was abducted is acutely personal for Till. Till realises that outsiders have only brought sadness and destruction to Wirowie, starting with the theft of Country from the Indigenous people. Feeling overwhelmed and unsafe, Till runs again but then realises that she cannot run forever.
Till decides to return to Wirowie.
What follows is both uplifting, and frustrating. Uplifing because Till will be able to move forward, frustrating because I couldn’t make the leap of faith necessary to accept the way certain events unfolded. That said, the novel held my attention from beginning to end. I wanted to know more about some of the other characters who lived in Wirowie, including Tundra and Bev. Ms Treloar includes some difficult issues in this novel, including fear and grief, domestic violence, and dispossession.
This is Ms Treloar’s third novel. Well-written and interesting but, for me, not as engaging as either ‘Salt Creek’ or ‘Wolfe Island’.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
As a young child, Till witnessed the abduction of a friend. Ever since she has wondered whether she could have done more to stop it. Till refers to her friend as E, unable to say her name, and no longer uses her own childhood name. Till is now twenty-three and while she lived with her parents during the pandemic lockdowns, the lockdowns are over and Till senses danger. She and her dog Birdy leave, in search of safety.
In a near deserted town called Wirowie, Till finds a place where she is comfortable. With the help of Birdy and some of the locals she gradually settles, building a new life. But Wirowie has its own secrets, and Till’s trauma is never far from her consciousness. A series of incidents involving other women in Wirowie ending with a message from another woman who was abducted is acutely personal for Till. Till realises that outsiders have only brought sadness and destruction to Wirowie, starting with the theft of Country from the Indigenous people. Feeling overwhelmed and unsafe, Till runs again but then realises that she cannot run forever.
Till decides to return to Wirowie.
What follows is both uplifting, and frustrating. Uplifing because Till will be able to move forward, frustrating because I couldn’t make the leap of faith necessary to accept the way certain events unfolded. That said, the novel held my attention from beginning to end. I wanted to know more about some of the other characters who lived in Wirowie, including Tundra and Bev. Ms Treloar includes some difficult issues in this novel, including fear and grief, domestic violence, and dispossession.
This is Ms Treloar’s third novel. Well-written and interesting but, for me, not as engaging as either ‘Salt Creek’ or ‘Wolfe Island’.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
February 24, 2024
When they were five, Till and E were playing in their kindergarten playground. A man came by, and walked away with E. After the lockdowns are over, 23 year old Till notices someone outside her local area in Brunswick, Melbourne, and that childhood trauma is instantly revisited, resulting in Till leaving home with her greyhound, Birdy comes along. Arriving in an almost deserted town called Wirowie in country South Australia, Till finds safety and solace in the abandoned railways station.
Trauma affects people in very different ways and Lucy Treloar takes pains to extrapolate on this burden that Till wears in her heart. Till cannot move forward. For every step forward, like in renovating the station and purchase it for her own, she is pushed two steps backwards. Bullish and brutish police officers, women abducted and missing and the impact on the local First Nations people push Till to run again.
There is a lot of narration from six-year-old Till, and it is hard to remember that in some parts. The resilience being built by Till at such a young age is evident, and is reflected in her 23 year old self. The writing is rather exquisite, almost dream like prose: “If she were to tell someone that the land was yellow and of a severe horizontality, and the sky was blue, they would not understand that its beauty was sometimes tiring and her eyes deeded to rest”. It lulled me into a state of feeling comforted in the strangest of places, yet the wariness of strangers and their ability to uproot safety and stability is never far away.
Thank you to #mindfood for the giveaway copy.
Trauma affects people in very different ways and Lucy Treloar takes pains to extrapolate on this burden that Till wears in her heart. Till cannot move forward. For every step forward, like in renovating the station and purchase it for her own, she is pushed two steps backwards. Bullish and brutish police officers, women abducted and missing and the impact on the local First Nations people push Till to run again.
There is a lot of narration from six-year-old Till, and it is hard to remember that in some parts. The resilience being built by Till at such a young age is evident, and is reflected in her 23 year old self. The writing is rather exquisite, almost dream like prose: “If she were to tell someone that the land was yellow and of a severe horizontality, and the sky was blue, they would not understand that its beauty was sometimes tiring and her eyes deeded to rest”. It lulled me into a state of feeling comforted in the strangest of places, yet the wariness of strangers and their ability to uproot safety and stability is never far away.
Thank you to #mindfood for the giveaway copy.
December 4, 2023
Two young girls, playing in the grounds of a kindergarten, one skips off with a man, never to be seen again. The other grows up, but those plans of childhood could never be realised because the other disappeared.
How does a person deal with a traumatic event in childhood? The adult sings, and sometimes she sings in E’s voice, well what she remembers E’s voice would be like. Memories become hazy. She wears black all the time, maybe a reflection of her mood, her continual grief or because that event changed her and she never wants to forget.
Unresolved events of the past remain unresolved. Despite the years many things don’t change. The violence given out to Australia’s indigenous folk in the past has never been fully addressed and so we as a country live with this unresolved angst. Family violence meted out upon women and children, if unaddressed, ripples through the community breeding distrust. This book is about the ripple effects of violence between people and upon people. Despite such a heavy topic the writing is whimsical, and the story never feels heavy or harsh. Some of the prose is beautiful. Her Till describes finding Wirrowie in outback South Australia.
‘Till came upon a scotch thistle and the tracks of small creatures in a creek bed. The light all around was so thick it seemed solid as water, swaying above the ground, trembling within bowls of trees, pouring along creek beds.’
This is an excellent read. My one query is whether the resolution for Till is realistic. It seemed somewhat contrived. 4.5 stars /5.
How does a person deal with a traumatic event in childhood? The adult sings, and sometimes she sings in E’s voice, well what she remembers E’s voice would be like. Memories become hazy. She wears black all the time, maybe a reflection of her mood, her continual grief or because that event changed her and she never wants to forget.
Unresolved events of the past remain unresolved. Despite the years many things don’t change. The violence given out to Australia’s indigenous folk in the past has never been fully addressed and so we as a country live with this unresolved angst. Family violence meted out upon women and children, if unaddressed, ripples through the community breeding distrust. This book is about the ripple effects of violence between people and upon people. Despite such a heavy topic the writing is whimsical, and the story never feels heavy or harsh. Some of the prose is beautiful. Her Till describes finding Wirrowie in outback South Australia.
‘Till came upon a scotch thistle and the tracks of small creatures in a creek bed. The light all around was so thick it seemed solid as water, swaying above the ground, trembling within bowls of trees, pouring along creek beds.’
This is an excellent read. My one query is whether the resolution for Till is realistic. It seemed somewhat contrived. 4.5 stars /5.
May 14, 2024
When someone you were close to disappears what are you left with?
This is the story of Till whose friend E is abducted when she's 5 and who is left with the child she was and the person she needs to become in order to cope with loss.
Treloar writes beautifully. The characters are also strong and interesting. The strange days of covid and lockdowns, lack of trust and the gathering together of families, the abandonment of routines, friends, workplaces, visits to parks and malls, cafes and beaches, are recaptured and echoed back to Till in a way that mirrors some of what she went through as a child/teen.
There are some elements to the story that didn't quite ring true for me, Spoiler here, such as the bad cop turning out to be a truly rotten bastard, and the man who took E and then comes back for her many years later, but why not? There's the woman who murdered her in-laws with mushrooms, the Austrian man who kept his daughter and their offspring in a bunker, the man who had different families who met at his funeral (they didn't know about each other), the woman who married her dog, the cop who got away with leaning on men's necks for many years - until he was caught on camera and convicted, etc. The world is a strange place, often cruel, just as often wonderful, full of secrets and old ways that we've stupidly shunned.
This is the story of Till whose friend E is abducted when she's 5 and who is left with the child she was and the person she needs to become in order to cope with loss.
Treloar writes beautifully. The characters are also strong and interesting. The strange days of covid and lockdowns, lack of trust and the gathering together of families, the abandonment of routines, friends, workplaces, visits to parks and malls, cafes and beaches, are recaptured and echoed back to Till in a way that mirrors some of what she went through as a child/teen.
There are some elements to the story that didn't quite ring true for me, Spoiler here, such as the bad cop turning out to be a truly rotten bastard, and the man who took E and then comes back for her many years later, but why not? There's the woman who murdered her in-laws with mushrooms, the Austrian man who kept his daughter and their offspring in a bunker, the man who had different families who met at his funeral (they didn't know about each other), the woman who married her dog, the cop who got away with leaning on men's necks for many years - until he was caught on camera and convicted, etc. The world is a strange place, often cruel, just as often wonderful, full of secrets and old ways that we've stupidly shunned.
April 15, 2025
Till survived a terrible trauma as a young child but is still living with guilt and fear, which drives her to leave Melbourne and her family home to find refuge in an abandoned and crumbling railway station in the north of South Australia. The sensitivity with which Treloar exposes Till's inner thoughts and feelings is beautiful.
It took me several days of careful reading to work through Lucy Treloar's incredible authorship. I wanted to savour the pictures she drew and the characters...incredible.
Towns in the mid-north and northern regions of South Australian towns and their surrounds, and the people living within them are brought to life. Anyone who has lived or spent time there will be familiar with their wide streets and big skies.
So why have I now changed my rating from 5 to 3 stars? Because what I can't let go of is an overwhelming disappointment in the last part of this book. I can accept some tired stereotypical characters, such as the nasty country cop drunk on his own power. But unfortunately the book also descends into an unnecessarily violent ending filled with cliches and unlikely scenarios.
Perhaps Treloar wanted to give some closure for readers about the fate of the childhood perpetrator. Perhaps she wanted to give Till back the power over that to close the circle and as a comfort for the reader. While the ending doesn't negate the incredible writing, it is a distraction from what is otherwise a very raw and original story.
It took me several days of careful reading to work through Lucy Treloar's incredible authorship. I wanted to savour the pictures she drew and the characters...incredible.
Towns in the mid-north and northern regions of South Australian towns and their surrounds, and the people living within them are brought to life. Anyone who has lived or spent time there will be familiar with their wide streets and big skies.
So why have I now changed my rating from 5 to 3 stars? Because what I can't let go of is an overwhelming disappointment in the last part of this book. I can accept some tired stereotypical characters, such as the nasty country cop drunk on his own power. But unfortunately the book also descends into an unnecessarily violent ending filled with cliches and unlikely scenarios.
Perhaps Treloar wanted to give some closure for readers about the fate of the childhood perpetrator. Perhaps she wanted to give Till back the power over that to close the circle and as a comfort for the reader. While the ending doesn't negate the incredible writing, it is a distraction from what is otherwise a very raw and original story.
February 20, 2024
Well I really enjoyed the first 2/3 or 3/4 of this book, loved the narrator, the tone, even though it was very slow moving. Till was clearly traumatised (friend had been taken at 5 years old), and it was interesting to learn how she was coping (or not) as a 23 yo. Setting in mid north SA in a ghost town was interesting, but not entirely believable (but I could let that go - maybe there were towns like that that I haven't seen/visited). Her fleeing Melbourne, and her "settling" in a ghost town and developing tenuous roots and friendships was sweet (and beautifully written), and could have been the entire story-line.
I found it hard to believe the actual reality of the man following her so many years later (I had thought it more likely to be her imagination), but it just became entirely unbelievable when all the other murders and women being tied up were solved neatly in the end. Bookclub members mostly all seemed to feel same about the ending.
Nevertheless, still one of my favourite bookclub reads so far.
I found it hard to believe the actual reality of the man following her so many years later (I had thought it more likely to be her imagination), but it just became entirely unbelievable when all the other murders and women being tied up were solved neatly in the end. Bookclub members mostly all seemed to feel same about the ending.
Nevertheless, still one of my favourite bookclub reads so far.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 28, 2024
An intriguing exploration of trauma and grief as Till tries to reconcile her actions / memories of the day, years back when she was five, when her best friend E was abducted. Till has never recovered and she tries to cope through distancing herself from her family and through, at times risk-taking behaviour. She trusts no one except Birdy, her gentle greyhound, who is a calming and consistent presence in her life.
Till decides to escape and takes up residence in an abandoned railway station in Wirowie where things start to get a bit interesting, and I shall leave you to discover what.
Where I struggled to get immersed in the book is in the use of point of view, sitting mainly in omniscient narrator which kept me at arm's length from Till and what she was dealing with. That may have been Treloar's intention, to keep the reader at a distance, observing, but I found it took away from the reading experience, but then again, many others have loved this approach, so it is only my opinion.
Well worth grabbing a copy and having a read.
Till decides to escape and takes up residence in an abandoned railway station in Wirowie where things start to get a bit interesting, and I shall leave you to discover what.
Where I struggled to get immersed in the book is in the use of point of view, sitting mainly in omniscient narrator which kept me at arm's length from Till and what she was dealing with. That may have been Treloar's intention, to keep the reader at a distance, observing, but I found it took away from the reading experience, but then again, many others have loved this approach, so it is only my opinion.
Well worth grabbing a copy and having a read.
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