The Turning
by Tim Winton
Picador, $90
Epiphanies, crossroads, defining moments. In The Turning Tim Winton explores these important junctures in a person's life, showing the impact of childhood experiences on shaping adult realities. The 17 short stories can be read separately but have a greater impact together, not least because characters recur, as do themes and settings. For instance, Big World, which opens the book, introduces Vic Lang, described fleetingly as the school dux who doesn't attend graduation. He returns in the second tale, Abbreviation, as a 12-year-old getting his first kiss from an older girl. And we see him again, albeit through the eyes of his wife,
in Damaged Goods. He's now a man disabled by the memory of that unexpected liaison. Winton demonstrates in this heartfelt collection why he's twice been nominated for the Booker Prize. Returning to a short-story format, which can limit less skilful writers, he moves with his taut prose and masterful characterisation of protagonists who have (usually) been ill-treated by fate. Some critics judged The Turning to be a cut above his previous work, Cloudstreet, The Riders and Dirt Music.