The Fern Tattoo
by David Brooks
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Evidently she knew who I was, or thought she did, since I had apparently needed no introduction and certainly hadn't received one... She told stories. One could almost say she rushed into them, on the merest of pretexts, as if the world was ending very shortly and they had to be got through before it happened. A century of family secrets starts to unravel when Benedict Waters is summoned to an audience with an old friend of his mother. He is seduced by her storytelling and it takes time and show more an astonishing revelation before he realises that it is his own family he has been hearing about, his own life that is being undone. From the Blue Mountains to the Hawkesbury and from Sydney to the south coast of New South Wales, The Fern Tattoo takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey through several generations of three families. We meet a range of extraordinary characters including a bigamist bishop, a librarian tattooed from neck to knee, a young girl who kills her best friend in a tragic shooting accident and a pair of lovers who live each other's lives for years after they have separated. As with all families, there are lost loves, tragic passions and unspoken - sometimes unspeakable - histories. The Fern Tattoo is a beguiling novel about the certainty of fate and the randomness of love that announces David Brooks' return as one of Australia's most distinctive literary novelists. show lessTags
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40+ Works 202 Members
David Brooks was born in Toronto, Canada on August 11, 1961. He received a degree in history from the University of Chicago in 1983. After graduation, he worked as a police reporter for the City News Bureau. His other jobs include numerous posts at The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, and a contributing editor at show more Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly. He currently is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times since 2003 and a weekly commentator on PBS NewsHour. He is the author of the several books including Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense, and The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement. He is also the editor of the anthology Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing. David Brooks made the New York Times Best Seller List with his title Social Animal: the Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement and The Road to Character. (Publisher Provided) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2007
- Important places
- Australia; Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia; New South Wales, Australia; Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Epigraph
- Yes, man is broad, too broad indeed, I'd have him narrower.
~ Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov: The Brothers Karamazov,
Fyodor Dostoevsky - Dedication
- To my daughter Jessica
- First words
- There should be a frontspiece, 'Noon in the Australian Forest', though not the noon of the Australian poets, not the noon of Charles Harpur or Henry Kendall.
~ PROEM
In almost the beginning there was the lighthouse - the lighthouse, and the houses beside it.
~ Chapter I - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)For the first time, just now, unaided, he has picked out the Southern Cross, Aldebaran, Canopus, and the great belt of Orion, that huge man.
- Original language
- English
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- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
