The Riders

Well written but so bleak!

A haunting, beautiful book that has you so frustrated with the main character but that frustration just shows how deeply you're invested in his crazy journey.

Sometimes when reading a book I will be laser focussed on where it is going, and what will happen there, that I don't enjoy the book for what it is. Its only after I finish and satisfy that curiosity that I can look back and appreciate the journey that I was on. It is so easy to fall into that trap with this book but luckily I caught myself before the end so I could enjoy it in the moment, rather than only when looking back.

Also thanks to this book I'm now into folk music, I'm literally listening to The Dubliners while writing this. So that's an automatic 5 stars.

The first Winton book I have read and I have come out of it massively impressed.

We are told the bitter tale of a man called Scully and his daughter Billie. Scully is desperately in love with his wife who, seemingly out of the blue, deserts him. With that event we eventually learn Scully and his wife are different. Scully is not that attractive. Hard worker that he is, Scully, is basically rustic. Unbeknownst to himself he is not part of the intellectual expatriate art set his wife is attracted to and seemingly part of. With that we get a portrait of a man out of his depth as he chases his heart and loses his mind. All this with a wise beyond her years daughter Billie in tow. Six year old Billie is seemingly unable to tell her father what happened when the mother put her on a plane and sent her to oblivion. But she has a love for her father that allows her to be dragged into his mental carnage and take him to the bitter ending that was always the only end.

The brilliance of this book is the way that the author has articulated how the mind of Scully broke down as he realised he was betrayed by what he held dear, that those he trusted where never trustworthy. The growing realisation that life can be bitter.

And The Riders? As the reader I was drawn to these ghostly characters that appear at the start and the end of Scully's journey. To me they were a metaphor for the chasers that never finds the answer.

Superb read for me personally.