‘But an easy hope is a fake one and that is far away from what Flanagan seeks to achieve in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. There are no living gods in Flanagan’s war and post-war and that must have been the feeling of many, but not all, who lived and died or lived and lived.’

Read my review of the only Australian novel to be long-listed for the Man Booker Prize at cread: reading is believing.