The High Places

The Winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize 2017 From the author of Waterstones’ Book Club choice, The Night Guest comes a collection of fourteen scintillating short stories: surprising, wise, thought-provoking and superbly wrought. The wife was driving on the night they hit Mr Ronald.‘My first drive since getting married,’ she said.   ‘First this, first that,’ said her husband. He looked at her, sitting high in the seat: her hair looked flimsy and blonde. It was ten o’clock and only just dark. These were the days for marrying – the long days, and the summer. It hadn’t rained. Ranging in setting from Australia to Greece, England to a Pacific island, these stories focus on people: their hopes, fears, dreams and disappointments, and their relationships - between ill-matched friends, daughters and mothers, fathers and sons, married couples and sisters. Some are eccentric, like the widower who believes his dead wife's mechanical parrot speaks to him, or the research scientist convinced that Charles Darwin visits him on his remote island; others delude themselves, like the mistress of a married man who thinks she's freer than her married sister. All are confronted with events that make them see themselves and their lives from a fresh perspective. It is what they do as a result that is as unpredictable as life itself.  “This felt like a writer who was pitch perfect and just hit it on the nail with this book… we were all really impressed by, bluntly, a genius. And I am sure we will see a lot more of Fiona McFarlane. She is already acclaimed, but this will take her into an even higher stratosphere.” – Professor Dai Smith, Chair of Judges for the Dylan Thomas Prize ‘Deliciously unsettling, her characters act and react in unexpected ways, taking both reader and themselves by surprise.’ – The Observer Australian author Fiona Macfarlane’s first novel The Night Guest won the inaugural Voss Literary prize in 2014. It was also shortlisted for Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin, as well as the Guardian first book award in the UK.