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A review by krasf
The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton
4.0
Whenever I read a young character in a Winton novel, I wonder if that's really how they talk. I can cop the swearing, it strikes me as authentic, bit I can't help but feel like some of the slang is a little off. I love it all any way.
It didn't make me like the central character, teenager Jaxie Clackton any less. Although there are plenty of sections in this book that made me recoil. Clackton finds his abusive father dead not long after his mother dies of cancer. He skips town, afraid that he'll be the prime suspect I. His father's death.
When he stumbles across disgraced priest Fintan Macguillas, doing his own penance in a hut in the middle of nowhere. And so comes the exploration of salvation, the nature and presence of God, and sin. The exchanges between the old Irish priest and the young runaway are as eloquent as they can be blunt, retold through Jaxie's memories. But they are stretches of prose that I wished would go on forever.
It didn't make me like the central character, teenager Jaxie Clackton any less. Although there are plenty of sections in this book that made me recoil. Clackton finds his abusive father dead not long after his mother dies of cancer. He skips town, afraid that he'll be the prime suspect I. His father's death.
When he stumbles across disgraced priest Fintan Macguillas, doing his own penance in a hut in the middle of nowhere. And so comes the exploration of salvation, the nature and presence of God, and sin. The exchanges between the old Irish priest and the young runaway are as eloquent as they can be blunt, retold through Jaxie's memories. But they are stretches of prose that I wished would go on forever.