In Moonland

WINNER OF THE 2022 AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR FICTION
HIGHLY COMMENDED IN THE 2022 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION

'A parent's love for a child, you probably know this yourself, it's pretty bottomless. It goes down into the guts of the world. But a child's love for a parent is different. It goes up. It's more ethereal. It's not quite present on the earth.'

In present-day Melbourne, a man attempts to piece together the mystery of his father's apparent suicide as his young family slowly implodes. At the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, in 1976, a man searching for salvation must confront his capacity for violence and darkness. And in a not-too-distant future, a woman with a life-altering decision to make travels through a climate-ravaged landscape to visit her estranged father.

In Moonland is a portrait of three generations, each grappling with their own mortality. Spanning the wild idealism of the 70s through to the fragile hope of the future, it is a novel about the struggle for transcendence and the reverberating effects of family bonds. This long-awaited second outing from Miles Allinson, the multi-award-winning author of Fever of Animals, will affirm his reputation as one of Australia's most interesting contemporary fiction writers, and urge us to see our own political and environmental reality in a new light.

'In Moonland is a novel about the ways we yearn to belong; a deeply moving excavation of faith, autonomy, identity and, ultimately, mortality. Allinson writes with great warmth and insight, his exquisite prose offering light to even the darkest corners of his characters' hearts.'
- Judges comments for The Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction

'A joy to read, with its relaxed authority of tone, its complex emotional depths, and its curious, daring beauty.'
- Helen Garner

'A story of our hearts, all broken, full, mystifying. Observant, sublime prose.'
- Tara June Winch, author of The Yield