The Turning

Finished February 23

The Turning by Tim Winton

I always find Australian author Tim Winton's books intriguing. This one is a collection of short stories, loosely linked to each other, all pertaining to moments in people's lives where things changed in some way for them. Most of these stories are told in the first person, and the narrators range in age, and sometimes reappear in a later story. 

Some of these characters we see as children, just as they are coming into adolescence and finding their way, having an encounter that makes a difference in their lives. Sometimes they make a decision to leave somewhere or to return somewhere and that too influences their life in a way they hadn't anticipated. 

Some of these turnings are awakenings, others are a return to a past that was never fully dealt with. All of them take place in Western Australia and give a sense of the land there, the ocean and the landscape. They take place in small communities or rural areas. 

Winton takes you inside the characters' heads, seeing what they are thinking and feeling so that you feel what is happening to them, how it affects them. 

These events are sometimes small, sometimes big, sometimes peripheral to the their lives in many ways except for the effect they have. 

A great read.