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A gripping, enigmatic collection of linked short stories about the reverberations of a serial killer's crimes in the lives of everyday people.
In the small town of Barrow, Australia, people go about their ordinary lives. They drive to work through the dense state forest. They raise their families. They flirt and yearn. They lie and confess. Some of them leave home. Some of them return.
Darkness thrums beneath the surface of these ordinary lives: the violence of one man, a serial killer whose murders made Barrow infamous. His twelve victims―women, men, mostly young―are long gone, but their deaths are felt, beyond the forest where they were buried, beyond this country, beyond even this time. In the past, where a young woman on a school trip to Rome sees something she shouldn't have. In the present, where a man confronts an ancient grief on the suburban streets of Texas. In the future, in the hands of journalists and podcast hosts and television actors whose livelihoods hinge on the twin spectacles of loss and violence.
Highway Thirteen is a luminous wonder: a book about the collisions between public and private selves, between parents and children, between history and what comes after, between the living and the dead. Fiona McFarlane's roving vision is itself a story about stories―those we tell, retell, forget, sell, disprove, inherit, live through―and a work of extraordinary power and magic.
"However entertaining, McFarlane's stories continually remind readers that behind true-crime stories' escapist pleasure exist real death and human pain. Addictively engaging, profoundly serious fiction from an underappreciated master." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Eerie and insightful ... McFarlane beautifully renders the ways in which news of the crimes warps some of her cast's relationships and causes other characters to slip into obsession. It's a standout meditation on a community's legacy of violence." ―Publishers Weekly
"Each story ... stands alone beautifully. Woven together, they illustrate the long-reaching, often unexpected ripple effects evil has on every life it touches." — Booklist
"[A] smart, deeply moving collection ... Readers may be tempted to hazard an opinion of who and what the killer is from the perspectives his ancestors, neighbors, the media, groupies, even the tangentially involved, offer, but in the end it is their stories―of loss, obsession and brokenness―that linger." ―Los Angeles Times
"This Möbius strip of linked stories bends and twists the crime genre until it is barely recognisable ... The result is a riveting study of human nature." ―Geraldine Brooks, author of Horse
"These sublime stories have the poise and clarity of classics. As Fiona McFarlane's characters edge towards revelation or disaster, her artistry shines on every page." ―Michelle de Kretser, author of Scary Monsters
This information about Highway Thirteen was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Fiona McFarlane is the author of The Night Guest; The High Places, which won the International Dylan Thomas Prize; and The Sun Walks Down. Her short fiction has been published in The New Yorker and Zoetrope: All-Story. She teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.
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