Sun Walks Down

In September 1883, the small South Australian outback town of Fairly sits under strangely vivid sunsets. A dust storm has swept through, and six-year-old Denny Wallace has vanished in it. The whole community joins the search, combing the desert and the mountains for the missing boy. The novel is told through many voices: newlyweds, farmers, mothers, Indigenous trackers, cameleers, children, artists, schoolteachers, widows, maids and policemen. As the search goes on, each of them has to face their relationships with the others and with the landscape around them. Colonial Australia here is loud with opinions, arguments, longings and fears, and it is haunted by many gods, the sun among them, rising and setting on each day that Denny might be found or lost for good. The Sun Walks Down is by Fiona McFarlane, the Australian author of the novel Night Guest. It deals with love, art and the divine.