Novel of the week: The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan
See all pages Richard Flanagan’s eighth novel, which received rave reviews when it was published in Australia last autumn, is a story of “extinction, both personal and environmental”, said Amanda Craig in The Spectator. It is set in the summer of 2019-20, when raging bushfires were wiping out Tasmania’s “cornucopia of flora and fauna”. In a Hobart hospital lies 86-year-old Francie, close to being wiped out herself. With her are her three grown-up children: successful professionals Anna and Terzo, and “stammering, chaotic” Tommy. Francie wants to die, but only Tommy respects ...