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The betrayal
In the sweltering summer of 1967, Judith Maloney, a young Australiana girl working in the south of France, witnesses the aftermath of a brutal crime.
Thirty years later, the events of that day are still with Judith as her daughter - unaware of the confidences and betrayals they carry - persuades her to return to France with her.
There, the fountain of Vaucluse, site of the world's deepest subterranean well, brings the secrets of that distant summer shimmering back to the surface. With them comes the hidden story of the place itself - of occupation and resistance, and of a betrayal far darker than Judith could have imagined.
Thirty years later, the events of that day are still with Judith as her daughter - unaware of the confidences and betrayals they carry - persuades her to return to France with her.
There, the fountain of Vaucluse, site of the world's deepest subterranean well, brings the secrets of that distant summer shimmering back to the surface. With them comes the hidden story of the place itself - of occupation and resistance, and of a betrayal far darker than Judith could have imagined.
273 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
5 people want to read
About the author
Liam Davison
20 books4 followersLiam Patrick Davison was an award-winning Australian novelist. He was born in Melbourne, where until 2007, he taught creative writing at the Chisholm Institute of Technology in Frankston.
Educated at St Bede's College, Melbourne and Melbourne Teacher's College. Davison was awarded the National Book Council's Banjo Award for Fiction in 1993 and has been shortlisted for several literary prizes such as The Age Book of the Year Award and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award. His work is characterised by its sharp and perceptive insights into Australian history and landscape.
He was married with two children, Sam and Milly, and lived on the Mornington Peninsula. (Wikipedia)
Liam Davison and his wife Frankie were aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 when it was shot down over disputed territory in Ukraine, and all lives were lost.
Educated at St Bede's College, Melbourne and Melbourne Teacher's College. Davison was awarded the National Book Council's Banjo Award for Fiction in 1993 and has been shortlisted for several literary prizes such as The Age Book of the Year Award and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award. His work is characterised by its sharp and perceptive insights into Australian history and landscape.
He was married with two children, Sam and Milly, and lived on the Mornington Peninsula. (Wikipedia)
Liam Davison and his wife Frankie were aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 when it was shot down over disputed territory in Ukraine, and all lives were lost.
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August 29, 2014
The Betrayal is the last of Liam Davison’s four novels, and I was expecting it to be the best but I was a bit disappointed by it. Like his other novels it is grounded in the concept of what Maria Tumarkin calls Traumascapes, but character seems more important in this book and the novel doesn’t have that powerful sense of an Australian past permeating the present that worked so well in The White Woman and Soundings, and in The Velodrome to a lesser extent.
The Betrayal centres on a character called Judith Maloney, and she’s as dreary as her name. She is preoccupied by the past, and it seems to have expressed itself in chronic pain, for which she seeks treatment from a charismatic quack at a spa in country Victoria. (Based, I suspect, on Hepburn Springs, but none too flattering about its waters!) Here she vacillates between doubts about the quackery and submitting to the empathetic charm of ‘Dr’ Menadue, with a letter from her estranged daughter Louise acting as a catalyst for her to start sorting herself out.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/08/30/th...
The Betrayal centres on a character called Judith Maloney, and she’s as dreary as her name. She is preoccupied by the past, and it seems to have expressed itself in chronic pain, for which she seeks treatment from a charismatic quack at a spa in country Victoria. (Based, I suspect, on Hepburn Springs, but none too flattering about its waters!) Here she vacillates between doubts about the quackery and submitting to the empathetic charm of ‘Dr’ Menadue, with a letter from her estranged daughter Louise acting as a catalyst for her to start sorting herself out.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/08/30/th...
Displaying 1 of 1 review