The Children

Wood's best work yet a graceful and empathetic portrayal of one family seeking to understand itself. - Australian Book Review

Simple and real, this is a beautifully heavy and affecting story that will linger in your mind long after you've read the last page. - Good Reading

A thoughtful, incisive and eminently readable book. - Canberra Times

When their father is critically injured, foreign correspondent Mandy and her siblings return home, bringing with them the remnants and patterns of childhood. Mandy has lived away from the country for many years. Her head is filled with images of terror and war, and her homecoming to the quiet country town—not to mention her family and marriage—only heightens her disconnection from ordinary life.

Cathy, her younger sister, has stayed in regular contact with her parents, trying also to keep tabs on her brother Stephen who, for reasons nobody understands, has held himself apart from the family for years. In the intensive care unit, the children sit, trapped between their bewildered mother and one another; between old wounds and forgiveness, their past and each other.

But as they wait and watch over their father, there's someone else watching too: a young wardsman, Tony, who's been waiting for Mandy to come home. As he insinuates himself into the family, the pressure, and the threat, intensify and build to a climax of devastating force.