What do you think?
Rate this book
Drowner
Will Dance is the son of a "drowner, " a man who understands the secrets of irrigation. With actress Angelica Lloyd, whom he meets at the public baths, Will journeys to western Australia to work on the engineering miracle that was to bring fresh water uphill to a desert town gripped by two the goldrush and typhoid. While the love story of Angelica and Will is at the heart of this novel, it is but a part of the daring epic romance that unfolds.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
4 people are currently reading
222 people want to read
About the author
Robert Drewe
60 books81 followersRobert Drewe is among Australia’s most loved writers – of novels, memoir and short stories. His iconic Australian books include The Shark Net, The Bodysurfers and Our Sunshine. He is also editor of Black Inc.’s Best Australian Stories annual series. Recently, he has revisited the short story himself, with a masterful new collection, The Rip. Jo Case spoke to him for Readings about storytelling.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
February 25, 2019
Superb, lyrical writing, such that you almost hear the Moody Blues' Seventh Sojourn playing in the background, this is a book that takes you back to those deep, meaningful/less metaphysical discussions of your youth.
Forget the idealistic young English engineer, Will Dance, a drowner at heart; forget the beautiful self-centred and damaged actress, Angelica; forget Inez, the young Melbourne socialite now cleaning maggots from the wounds of miners on the Goldfields; forget the visionary C.Y. O'Connor whose pipeline brought water hundreds of miles from the coast to Kalgoorlie, and who was then driven to suicide by public ridicule; forget Felix Locke, the poetry writing, hypochondriac undertaker. Forget them all, because the main character of this book is water, in all its splendor and terror, its over-abundance and absence, its ability to give life or to take it away.
Think of water and you think of the soft words: fluid, flowing, mellifluous. Such is the writing of this book - it seeps and creeps, it finds its own level, it fills spaces of irregular shapes. Even at its harshest, it is simply beautiful.
Forget the idealistic young English engineer, Will Dance, a drowner at heart; forget the beautiful self-centred and damaged actress, Angelica; forget Inez, the young Melbourne socialite now cleaning maggots from the wounds of miners on the Goldfields; forget the visionary C.Y. O'Connor whose pipeline brought water hundreds of miles from the coast to Kalgoorlie, and who was then driven to suicide by public ridicule; forget Felix Locke, the poetry writing, hypochondriac undertaker. Forget them all, because the main character of this book is water, in all its splendor and terror, its over-abundance and absence, its ability to give life or to take it away.
Think of water and you think of the soft words: fluid, flowing, mellifluous. Such is the writing of this book - it seeps and creeps, it finds its own level, it fills spaces of irregular shapes. Even at its harshest, it is simply beautiful.
March 29, 2025
3.5 stars. An interesting historical fiction novel about an unusual love story between Will Dance and Angelica Lloyd. They meet in Bath, England in the late 1800s. Will is the son of a ‘drowner’, a man who understands the nuances of irrigation in rural England. Will becomes a civil engineer. Angelica is an actress traveling with her father’s company. They marry. Will takes a job in Western Australia that involves layering a water pipeline to the desert interior where gold is being mined. In the mining towns water is in short supply and there is a typhoid endemic.
Other interesting characters that Will and Angelica mix with include a German photographer, an American undertaker, an Australian nurse and a French doctor. Life in outback Australia is harsh, having negative consequences for many.
I found the novel very informative, particularly in relation to the engineering problems faced in supplying water in the late 1800s, and the start up of photography as a viable business in those times.
During the second half of the book, plot momentum picked up considerably.
Shortlisted for the 1997 Miles Franklin award.
Other interesting characters that Will and Angelica mix with include a German photographer, an American undertaker, an Australian nurse and a French doctor. Life in outback Australia is harsh, having negative consequences for many.
I found the novel very informative, particularly in relation to the engineering problems faced in supplying water in the late 1800s, and the start up of photography as a viable business in those times.
During the second half of the book, plot momentum picked up considerably.
Shortlisted for the 1997 Miles Franklin award.
September 6, 2017
A beautiful book. I have owned this for over 10 years and am not sure why it's taken me so long to get around to reading it. Started slowly, but became addictive reading in a slow and lulling way. Mostly set in the backdrop of Western Australia and CYO Connor's pipeline to Kalgoorlie. So much sadness, but a joy to read. One of those books that I couldn't stop reading, knew I'd be sad to leave behind when I'd finished, but still read at every chance I got.
September 13, 2014
Australian literary and historical fiction at its best. The Drowner romances people, place, and time through an elemental journey beginning in England, across Africa, and on to the vast and thirsty interior of the Western Australian goldfields. There is much for the inner soul here: you will taste the water, smell the decay, feel the heat, and you will want to cherish love while you can.
With all great books, you will be left wanting more, needing to know much more. You will be required to do some thinking.
With all great books, you will be left wanting more, needing to know much more. You will be required to do some thinking.
October 15, 2014
Provides good insight into how things were in Perth in the very early days and particularly the amazing feat with tragic ends for the main architect/engineer CY O'Connor. Fictional characters with a factual backdrop. I found it hard to read at first the way the story twists and turns, but once I got used to the style I enjoyed it.
January 18, 2025
You cannot argue that The Drowner isn't a deeply satisfying and, in a way, spiritual, read. However, making a full novel on the concept of water alone, while going much further than should be humanly possible, still leads to stale prose at times. How interesting can the fortieth water metaphor in a row really be?
July 12, 2011
Will Dance was only "nettle high, thistle high, riding on his father's shoulders" when he learned about drowning. His father, like the mole he shows to Will, and like generations of Dances before him, is a drowner: "an artist, a craftsman, a personage", who knows how to bring water from river to meadow exactly as and when it is needed.
Will, like other young men of his time, prefers science to art. But his medium is water, and his profession as a civil engineer in the early days of the twentieth century takes him from the rich Wiltshire farmland of his childhood to the parched desert of the Western Australian goldfields.
Robert Drewe's central metaphor in this book is water and he controls every aspect of it with the artistry and skill of a true drowner. His language is subtle, fluid and full of reflections, but each short sequence of prose is like a vivid fragment of film in which his characters live and move.
In many ways, Drewe's writing is similar to that of Graham Swift in Waterland and Adam Thorpe in Ulverton. His story of love, passion, madness, death and human frailty is compelling, and his historical settings are full of curious, almost forgotten knowledge.
Drewe's approach is subtle but he draws us realistically into scenes as diverse as Will's Chapel baptism in the English River Avon and his eventual watery meeting with Angelica at Bath, to his typhoid delirium in a sackcloth tent under relentless Australian sun. His characters are striking and unusual but only Angelica's overbearing father, Hammond Lloyd, comes close to caricature as Ham Lloyd the famous actor. Drewe avoids this pitfall by exploring the curious psyches of other characters: like Inez, the well-bred young English woman who arrives to nurse sick miners in the drunken squalor of the goldfields; the dandy, Axel Boehm, who crawls half-a-mile into the earth with his glass photographic plates to photograph miners; and the American poet, Felix Locke, the goldfields undertaker.
Robert Drewe is one of Australia's best writers and The Drowner is an ambitious but beautifully realised creation from an imaginative and seductive story-teller. Not surprisingly, it has already attracted glowing reports from reviewers around the world.
Will, like other young men of his time, prefers science to art. But his medium is water, and his profession as a civil engineer in the early days of the twentieth century takes him from the rich Wiltshire farmland of his childhood to the parched desert of the Western Australian goldfields.
Robert Drewe's central metaphor in this book is water and he controls every aspect of it with the artistry and skill of a true drowner. His language is subtle, fluid and full of reflections, but each short sequence of prose is like a vivid fragment of film in which his characters live and move.
In many ways, Drewe's writing is similar to that of Graham Swift in Waterland and Adam Thorpe in Ulverton. His story of love, passion, madness, death and human frailty is compelling, and his historical settings are full of curious, almost forgotten knowledge.
Drewe's approach is subtle but he draws us realistically into scenes as diverse as Will's Chapel baptism in the English River Avon and his eventual watery meeting with Angelica at Bath, to his typhoid delirium in a sackcloth tent under relentless Australian sun. His characters are striking and unusual but only Angelica's overbearing father, Hammond Lloyd, comes close to caricature as Ham Lloyd the famous actor. Drewe avoids this pitfall by exploring the curious psyches of other characters: like Inez, the well-bred young English woman who arrives to nurse sick miners in the drunken squalor of the goldfields; the dandy, Axel Boehm, who crawls half-a-mile into the earth with his glass photographic plates to photograph miners; and the American poet, Felix Locke, the goldfields undertaker.
Robert Drewe is one of Australia's best writers and The Drowner is an ambitious but beautifully realised creation from an imaginative and seductive story-teller. Not surprisingly, it has already attracted glowing reports from reviewers around the world.
June 20, 2019
There are many things to like about the poetic nature of Drewe’s writing, and I was fascinated by his presentation of life in Perth and the Goldfields in particular, being a Western Australian.
However, there were many times I found the plot surrounding Will and Angelica really boring. Particularly the early part of the book (first 100 or so pages). Plus, the random perspectives of Felix, Inez and Axel seemed to confuse more than add to the story.
Some very nice touches but a bit too much of a chore.
However, there were many times I found the plot surrounding Will and Angelica really boring. Particularly the early part of the book (first 100 or so pages). Plus, the random perspectives of Felix, Inez and Axel seemed to confuse more than add to the story.
Some very nice touches but a bit too much of a chore.
November 20, 2016
Very slow and boring to start with, but I was enjoying it by the end. I never would have finished this if I wasn't studying it in school.
June 7, 2022
Published in 1996, a century after the pipeline that inspired its WA desert goldfields setting was commissioned, this atmospheric if almost plotless novel belongs to the same genre as The Service of Clouds (1997) by Delia Falconer: an exhaustively researched historical romance dripping sensuous description. And though typhoid haunts Drewe’s novel while the shadow of TB hangs over Falconer’s, The Drowner features photography too.
Yet Falconer’s characters live far more vividly than Drewe’s. In contrast to her first-person narration, his third-person point of view keeps his admittedly grittier characters at a journalistic remove, from where their dialogue often seems geared merely to further the flow of ideas. Still, his prose at its best is poetic:
Though Drewe’s rare fluency generates its own momentum, I put The Drowner down and forgot about it for months. All that wetness gave me little to push against. Which also meant I had no resistance to picking it up again when I ran out of more compelling books. And then, seduced by elegant sentences, I soon reached the ending, which satisfied if mainly because it reveals the title’s double meaning.
Yet Falconer’s characters live far more vividly than Drewe’s. In contrast to her first-person narration, his third-person point of view keeps his admittedly grittier characters at a journalistic remove, from where their dialogue often seems geared merely to further the flow of ideas. Still, his prose at its best is poetic:
‘The easterly is already picking up heat and stench and grit and momentum.’
‘Mistaking their steamer for a whaler, a school of pale sharks pilots them through a swell into the harbour.’
Though Drewe’s rare fluency generates its own momentum, I put The Drowner down and forgot about it for months. All that wetness gave me little to push against. Which also meant I had no resistance to picking it up again when I ran out of more compelling books. And then, seduced by elegant sentences, I soon reached the ending, which satisfied if mainly because it reveals the title’s double meaning.
October 7, 2023
I've had this book a while, bought with enthusiasm at a writer's festival and parked until now.
I enjoyed it, mostly. The writing is beautiful, mostly (and sometimes overblown to the point meaning was obscured). The plot and subject matter I found very interesting, mostly (but sometimes goes off on tangents to no real end). The novel surprised me as far as ideas / historical context, and that was enjoyable.
The characters - this is where the other stars dropped off for good. They weren't life-like, marionettes (ha!) who reacted in ways that made the plot points work rather than in character, and with character arcs that fizzled out between sections and never resumed. It also felt like check-boxing to make sure everyone was represented (but not really, lot of walk on parts). Maybe that's a function of it being published in 1996ish, but it feels a bit dated. In the end I was eye-rolling at the decisions made by the characters and didn't care what happened to them. Turns out I like character driven novels more than idea driven novels.
I enjoyed it, mostly. The writing is beautiful, mostly (and sometimes overblown to the point meaning was obscured). The plot and subject matter I found very interesting, mostly (but sometimes goes off on tangents to no real end). The novel surprised me as far as ideas / historical context, and that was enjoyable.
The characters - this is where the other stars dropped off for good. They weren't life-like, marionettes (ha!) who reacted in ways that made the plot points work rather than in character, and with character arcs that fizzled out between sections and never resumed. It also felt like check-boxing to make sure everyone was represented (but not really, lot of walk on parts). Maybe that's a function of it being published in 1996ish, but it feels a bit dated. In the end I was eye-rolling at the decisions made by the characters and didn't care what happened to them. Turns out I like character driven novels more than idea driven novels.
April 1, 2022
I took a while to get into the book and the writing style but, as other reviewers have noted, it became much more compelling once the story switched to WA. A really vivid portrait of the WA goldfields with personal interest for me as my great-grandfather worked on the building of the Goldfields pipeline and in one of the pumping stations. Not sure about the ending though - appropriately melodramatic for a certain character but it did have me worrying about another typhoid outbreak.
August 25, 2024
I have been reading this book for about a month and I still don’t know what it’s about. I’m not saying it’s boring, but I seem to entirely forget the plot and the characters between reads. It’s not sticking, and I don’t punish myself to continue. In one word? Forgettable
did-not-finish
September 28, 2023Tried audiobook- narration is good, writing is interesting, but story not grabbing me.
April 13, 2024
A beautifully written book, rich lyrical language & an engaging story.
July 1, 2024
a character study but all the characters are poorly written and boring. perfect for fans of normal people 🤞
October 7, 2024
Slow start, unlikeable love interest.
Interesting historical bits about building the pipeline.
Incest baby?
Interesting historical bits about building the pipeline.
Incest baby?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2020
Poetic and dreamlike prose, at least at the outset. "Drowner" refers to an English system, in Wiltshire, of seasonal field irrigation and the people who are considered expert its management. I can't tell where the story will go or whether the dreamlike tone will continue. Perhaps the irrigation system, i.e., flooding, will become a metaphor or analogy for something else. I am reminded of the English book by Graham Swift, Waterland, which uses the marshes and canals of the Fenlands of East Anglia to tell a convoluted and disturbing story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 29, 2012
The best books leave you gasping for air, drowning in jealousy that you did not write them. They fill you with the need to reread them, to prove to yourself the assumptions you have made. They make sense only in a place of consciousness which exists in the space between reader and writer, and linger like perfume in the air a while after you've finished.
Robert Drewe's The Drowner is one of the best books I have read this year.
I stumbled across it by chance. Looking for scholarly material on The Shark Net, I came across a discussion of water themes in Drewe's work. If you've read The Drowner you'll know why this is. The book powerfully evokes themes of water as an instrument of chaos, life and passion; something to be both feared and worshipped. From references to Shakespeare's Hamlet to recollections of Western Australia's past, Drewe paints a picture of tragedy and hope using a contrast of water and the lack of it.
The novel follows the life of lead character Will Dance, by profession a 'drowner'. After a chance meeting with the actress Angelica Lloyd in a public bath, water becomes a symbol not only of duty for Will but of passion. But for Angelica, her relationship with water is fraught with tension- an event in her past leaves her somewhat fascinated with the idea of drowning. Angelica and Will make their way to Western Australia so that Will can work on C.Y. O'Connor's Goldfields pipelines. Also tied up in this narrative are Angelica's father Hammond "Ham" Lloyd, the sometimes foolish and sometimes menacing actor, a figure of both love and loss in Angelica's life; Inez Gosper, the Melbourne woman who comes to the goldfield to nurse; Axel Boehm, the photographer with a secret; Felix Locke, the undertaker who longs for the touch of a living human and Dr Malebranche with his penchant for prostitutes. Their lives of desperation in a country town are transformed into something both normal and fascinated by Drewe's masterful prose. Never a purple phrase to lead the reader astray, The Drowner is a paragon of literary restraint.
As a Western Australian novel, The Drowner is gently situated without becoming narrow in focus. While Drewe uses the medium of drama and the state's reaction to the pipeline being built as an excuse to meditate on themes of West, the story itself in universal. Oftentimes, Drewe uses Ham and Angelica to make an ironic comparison between West End- the symbol of culture- and The West- a frontier which seems devoid of all.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Drewe's other works, or anyone who enjoyed Tim Winton's Breath.
I give this book five out of five marionettes joyeuse.
If you liked this review, visit http://elimy.blogspot.com and consider following for more.
Robert Drewe's The Drowner is one of the best books I have read this year.
I stumbled across it by chance. Looking for scholarly material on The Shark Net, I came across a discussion of water themes in Drewe's work. If you've read The Drowner you'll know why this is. The book powerfully evokes themes of water as an instrument of chaos, life and passion; something to be both feared and worshipped. From references to Shakespeare's Hamlet to recollections of Western Australia's past, Drewe paints a picture of tragedy and hope using a contrast of water and the lack of it.
The novel follows the life of lead character Will Dance, by profession a 'drowner'. After a chance meeting with the actress Angelica Lloyd in a public bath, water becomes a symbol not only of duty for Will but of passion. But for Angelica, her relationship with water is fraught with tension- an event in her past leaves her somewhat fascinated with the idea of drowning. Angelica and Will make their way to Western Australia so that Will can work on C.Y. O'Connor's Goldfields pipelines. Also tied up in this narrative are Angelica's father Hammond "Ham" Lloyd, the sometimes foolish and sometimes menacing actor, a figure of both love and loss in Angelica's life; Inez Gosper, the Melbourne woman who comes to the goldfield to nurse; Axel Boehm, the photographer with a secret; Felix Locke, the undertaker who longs for the touch of a living human and Dr Malebranche with his penchant for prostitutes. Their lives of desperation in a country town are transformed into something both normal and fascinated by Drewe's masterful prose. Never a purple phrase to lead the reader astray, The Drowner is a paragon of literary restraint.
As a Western Australian novel, The Drowner is gently situated without becoming narrow in focus. While Drewe uses the medium of drama and the state's reaction to the pipeline being built as an excuse to meditate on themes of West, the story itself in universal. Oftentimes, Drewe uses Ham and Angelica to make an ironic comparison between West End- the symbol of culture- and The West- a frontier which seems devoid of all.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Drewe's other works, or anyone who enjoyed Tim Winton's Breath.
I give this book five out of five marionettes joyeuse.
If you liked this review, visit http://elimy.blogspot.com and consider following for more.
November 20, 2025
The Drowner is a surreal tale stretched between two water-bound worlds. It follows a young couple whose lives drift from the wetlands of Bristol to the harsh goldfields of Australia.
It starts out as a quirky coming-of-age romance, he “reads” water and she is an actress. But shadows of family secrets and a protective alcoholic father give the early chapters an uneasy undertone.
As the pair set sail for Australia, their journey dips into encounters in Africa at the majestic Vic Falls before things take a darker turn. On arrival, the wife slips into opium-addled confusion as the husband retreats into obsessing over grand engineering projects. Troubles in marriage lead the story’s watery parables to become murky to follow. She leaves him in depression and confusion but their paths cross again later on.
The novel takes a sharp turn in his quest to connect the drought ridden goldfields with water from the coast. There follows a blisteringly visceral portrait of a dying town from the perspective of a dispossessed Australian woman who becomes a nurse amid cholera and dust. When these two encounter each other a strange tender feeling emerges that never quite finds it's shape.
The whole book ebbs and flows, sometimes hazy, often beautiful and ultimately rewarding. Recommend.
It starts out as a quirky coming-of-age romance, he “reads” water and she is an actress. But shadows of family secrets and a protective alcoholic father give the early chapters an uneasy undertone.
As the pair set sail for Australia, their journey dips into encounters in Africa at the majestic Vic Falls before things take a darker turn. On arrival, the wife slips into opium-addled confusion as the husband retreats into obsessing over grand engineering projects. Troubles in marriage lead the story’s watery parables to become murky to follow. She leaves him in depression and confusion but their paths cross again later on.
The novel takes a sharp turn in his quest to connect the drought ridden goldfields with water from the coast. There follows a blisteringly visceral portrait of a dying town from the perspective of a dispossessed Australian woman who becomes a nurse amid cholera and dust. When these two encounter each other a strange tender feeling emerges that never quite finds it's shape.
The whole book ebbs and flows, sometimes hazy, often beautiful and ultimately rewarding. Recommend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2012
This is a beautifully written book full of symbolism. I can see why some critics complained that the story drowns in its own water symbolism, but I loved it. Drewe said he was trying to write a great (capital 'R') romance and I think he has in the best sense of the genre. It is complex and unpredictable, moving and thought-provoking. I would highly recommend it and will send my copy* to my mum when I'm done using it for my night class, I hope she will send it back to me afterwards.
Happy reading of this gorgeous, worthwhile book, when you get your hands on it.
*I had trouble, like the other members of my course finding a copy in bookstores in Melbourne (despite Drewe being Australian and popular still, I believe). So I ordered in from Abe Books via The Book Depository (yay for them both!!!). The copy I had was published in Australia, sourced by Abe from St Louis, is barcoded for a library in Wisconsin and got to me via New Zealand (said the customs form).
Happy reading of this gorgeous, worthwhile book, when you get your hands on it.
*I had trouble, like the other members of my course finding a copy in bookstores in Melbourne (despite Drewe being Australian and popular still, I believe). So I ordered in from Abe Books via The Book Depository (yay for them both!!!). The copy I had was published in Australia, sourced by Abe from St Louis, is barcoded for a library in Wisconsin and got to me via New Zealand (said the customs form).
September 10, 2016
What a terrible story. Look..... the language was lovely in parts, and this could have been an outstanding book but it was dull dull dull.
If I want to know the intricacies of moving water I will read a book about it. I do not want a book disguised as a love story to bore me to death with technical information about water.
I belive that Australian school children are sometimes required to read this book as part of their curriculum and I believe that this does a great injustice to the kids. If anything is going to turn them off literature it is this book. Make them read Dickens or even Lawrence but not The Drowner.
If I want to know the intricacies of moving water I will read a book about it. I do not want a book disguised as a love story to bore me to death with technical information about water.
I belive that Australian school children are sometimes required to read this book as part of their curriculum and I believe that this does a great injustice to the kids. If anything is going to turn them off literature it is this book. Make them read Dickens or even Lawrence but not The Drowner.
November 27, 2014
Some books are better when you read them twice. The Drowner is one of those books. The first time I read it, I didn't particularly like it. I was only reading it for school. The second time I read it I actually understood what was going on and I realised I had missed a lot of genius. It is a complex love story which explores the changing tensions between Will Dance and Angelica Lloyd, the two main protagonists within the context of the Australian gold rush. I think you may enjoy this book if you appreciate literary theory and poetry, because the metaphors are multi-faceted and beautiful and the imagery is poignant.
May 15, 2017
I had to read this book for a class, but boy did l find it hard to read! Well, to start anyway. The first part is very slow and well, dry, for wont of a better term. It has a morose vibe to it throughout which isn't attractive either. But alas, if you prevail to the end, it's an interesting story, with rich descriptions of each setting, which changes from England, to Africa, to Western Australia. I learnt about the fascinating history of WA, which as an Aussie was brilliant. I want to know more now. The characters are well, 'characters' - very unique with their own idiosyncrasies. I found the ending unexpected and there's some twists in the book too! Recommend.
May 22, 2016
I struggled to get through the first section of the book, as it seemed a bit too indistinct for me. I did enjoy all of the parts set in Western Australia and many of the characters were interesting to read about. I had several laugh out loud moments, but overall it's not the kind of book I'd recommend to anyone. I only pushed through to complete this because I'm reading it for a book club. I'd not have continued after the first part if not for the book group. That said, I'm looking forward to discussing this tale with others in about a week.
abandoned
December 30, 2011I consider Robert Drewe's the bodysurfers to be one of the best Australian books ever but this is certainly not. Vague and disjointed story that tries to set up an occupation of drowning crops ie manipulating water on the farm to be semi religious, weird character names such as 'Alphabet Dance' and some romance between an engineer and a pretentious actress. Gave up after approx 50 pages.
August 10, 2011
I'm glad I persisted with this Robert Drewe book.It wasn't easy going at the start and probably half the book, but then things got interesting. Water is used as a metaphor for a lot of things including life and death. There is a lot going on here - I liked The Shark Net better, but will now search out another Drewe to read, maybe the Ned Kelly one
November 16, 2015
I found this book difficult to start - but once the story hit Western Australia, it really picked up. I found that quite a few things in the book were quite vague, and difficult to interpret, so I'm looking forward to my bookclub discussion to see if others interpreted the story the same way as I did.
January 3, 2017
Poetic prose often makes for a lumpy, leaden or overwrought story. Robert Drewe's visceral, languid and sensuous language ensures that 'The Drowner' eddies and churns where others sink like sack stuffed cats thrown into the canal. The books swirls from Wiltshire to Australia with a sense of wonder and hope in spite of the harshest realities. A beautiful book.
February 27, 2025
Gave up. Dull. One star is one too many.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews