When someone is taken away, what is left behind?
All her life, Till has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend and her tormented wondering about whether she could have stopped it.
When Till, now twenty-three, senses danger approaching again, she flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new life and home. But there is something menacing here too. Till must decide whether she can finally face down, even pursue, the darkness - or whether she'll flee once more and never stop running.
Both a reckoning with fear and loss, and a recognition of the power of belonging, Days of Innocence and Wonder is a richly textured, deeply felt new novel from one of Australia's finest writers.
WINNER OF THE BARBARA JEFFERIS AWARD 2024
Praise for Days of Innocence and Wonder
'Not a wasted word, not an observation missed' Jock Serong
'in full possession of her powers, as assured and ambitious as Barbara Kingsolver or Isabel Allende' Australian Book Review
Author Information
Lucy Treloar was born in Malaysia and educated in England, Sweden and Melbourne. Her novel Salt Creek (2015) won the Dobbie Literary Award among others, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UK's Walter Scott Prize. Wolfe Island (2019), her second novel, won the Barbara Jefferis Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's and NSW literary awards. She is a previous winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific region).
Lucy's essays and short fiction have appeared in publications including The Saturday Paper, Meanjin, The Age, Overland, Best Australian Stories and Foundational Fictions in South Australian History.
A graduate of the University of Melbourne and RMIT, Lucy lives in inner Melbourne with her family, and is currently writing her third novel.
Winner of the Indie Award Best Debut Fiction, 2016
Short-listed for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, 2016
Winner of the ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writer, 2016
Short-listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2016
Short-listed for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, 2016
Winner of the Dobbie Literary Award, 2016
Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific Region), 2014
Winner of the Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award, 2013
Asialink Writers Residency, 2011