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The Last Garden

The Last Garden 2

by Eva Hornung
Paperback
Publication Date: 01/05/2017
4/5 Rating 2 Reviews

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$28.75

**Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 2018**

**Longlisted for the ALS Gold Medal 2018**

**Winner of the 2018 SA Premier's Award**

**Winner of The 2018 Adelaide Festival award for Fiction**

The settlement of Wahrheit, founded in exile to await the return of the Messiah, has been waiting longer than expected.

Pastor Helfgott has begun to feel the subtle fraying of the community's faith. Then Matthias Orion shoots his wife and himself, on the very day their son Benedict returns home from boarding school. Benedict is unmoored by shock, severed from his past and his future.

Unable to be inside the house, unable to speak, he moves into the barn with the horses and chooks, relying on the animals' strength and the rhythm of the working day to hold his shattered self together.

The pastor watches over Benedict through the year of his crazy grief- man and boy growing, each according to his own capacity, as they come to terms with the unknowable past and the frailties of being human.

ISBN:
9781925498127
9781925498127
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
01-05-2017
Publisher:
Text Publishing
Country of origin:
Australia
Pages:
224
Dimensions (mm):
234x153x23mm
Weight:
0.33kg

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Reviews

4.5

Based on 2 reviews

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2 Reviews

Eva Hornung's Last Garden is an exquisitely told tale of the journey of a child into manhood but at the same time she explores the ongoing learning of the adults who surround him.
She shares a deep insight into the relationship between the boy and his animals whilst also questioning the beliefs and mindsets of the people who surround him.
This book is a joy to read. The literary language is sheer pleasure in a world where Thesaurus language has become the norm.
Want quality literature, this is it.

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4.5 stars

“The farm was alive as it had never been. It was sinister, sentient. Demanding. The blue shadows lengthened, marching towards him. The sun lit the stubble orange and flamed off the distant cliff of the escarpment. The water in the creek whispered through reed beds and gurgled over rocks, as it always had, but now there were words in it: sad, harsh, almost indistinguishable. The grass rustled with quick lives and a secret knowledge; the air was filled with buzz and sizzle, deep-toned frogs, an owl – all were shouting, scraping at him – asking for some response from him”

The Last Garden is the second novel by Australian author, Eva Hornung. When fifteen-year-old Benedict Orion comes home from boarding school to find his father has shot dead his mother and then himself, the only respite he can find from memories is in the barn. In his grief, he becomes a recluse: he shuns interaction with the well-meaning townspeople of Wahrheit, and keeps company with the horses and chickens. Pastor Edmund Helfgott’s visits cause anxiety and anticipation in equal measure.

Pastor Helfgott shields the boy from contact, allowing him to come to terms with his loss in his own way, praying this is the right thing to do. He does worry about the boy’s mental state. But despite being a pastor’s son, he has never felt he is doing an adequate job for his flock, never really filled the Old Pastor’s shoes, relying on his father’s sermons and the Book of Seasons his father wrote for the community in their new land. And now, this murder-suicide seems to be a catalyst for change in the small, exclusive community that the Old Pastor had founded so many years before, established in a new land to await the Second Coming.

Months later: “The Orion tragedy bled still, for somehow they had not gathered together and staunched the wound. They had not taken the boy into the heart of the community and tended him in his grief. They had not gathered axes, saws, adzes and the women, and marched out to the farm to clean up and rebuild his house. No one yet blamed the pastor, but somehow they all felt a vague disquiet and sense of culpability. The shock of Matthias’s act had paralysed them, and Benedict had himself become part of the wound”

After some time, Benedict allows some memories to surface, good ones at first:
“He had found Ada a collection of chickens beyond any flock Benedict had ever seen. He produced each squawking specimen with a flourish, as a magician might, made it flap for Benedict, then tossed it this way or that into the pen, Benedict laughed with delight, and Ada, standing and watching, looked up first at the willow tree, then the pine tree, then smiled. Each shrieking chicken was more spectacular than the last. The final crate held a single enraged rooster. Matthias mimed the danger, wrestled, and then extracted the most spectacular of them all: he had a speckled tuxedo, a trailing tail, black and white and a yard long, and magnificent spurs. Matthias swirled him, the tail feathers flying like streamers, then hurled him like a firework into the pen. The rooster righted himself and spun, neck feathers fluffed for battle, to attack the fence near where they stood”

Hornung’s second novel is filled with gorgeous descriptive prose as the year following the initial shocking event unfolds. While the time period and location are not specified, her portrayal of what is probably 19th century country Victoria shows deep understanding of, and connection with, the land. The mindset and feel of the tightknit religious community is also expertly conveyed. This is a powerful and thought-provoking read.

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