The Drowner

By: Robert Drewe

Narrated by: Paul English

In the warm alkaline waters of the public bath a headstrong young engineer accidentally collides with a beautiful actress. From this innocent collision of flesh begins a passion that takes them from the Wiltshire Downs to the most elemental choices of life and death in the Australian desert. Their intense romance is but part of the daring story that unfolds.

Mingling history, myth, and technology with a modern cinematic and poetic imagination, Robert Drewe presents a fable of European ambitions in an alien landscape and a magnificently sustained metaphor of water as the life-and-death force.

©1996 Robert Drewe (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"Drewe’s writing is cinematically immediate, and crackles with an intensity of sense…This is a mesmeric and utterly addictive book. At the end you’ll be left with many questions, one of which will be: why on earth isn’t Robert Drewe better known in this country?" (Maggie O’Farrell, Independent on Sunday)

"Myth, magic and melody coalesce in a fertile delta of imagination. Spellbinding." ( Sunday Times)

"One of the best books of the year." ( New Statesman)