[]
The Restorer
Published 5 February 2019
ISBN 9781925603736
Format Paperback
Extent 352pp
AU Price $22.99
NZ Price $26.00

The Restorer

Formats & editions
Paperback
5 Feb 2019
Tr. Paperback
27 Feb 2017
EBook
5 Feb 2019
Buy from…
Amazon Booktopia Dymocks QBD Readings Your Bookstore Abbeys Boomerang Collins Gleebooks Harry Hartog Kinokuniya Robinsons The Nile Mighty Ape

Longlisted for the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Michael Sala’s The Restorer is an explosive and powerful story one troubled family’s attempts to rebuild their broken lives.

After a year apart, Maryanne returns to her husband, Roy, bringing their eight-year-old son Daniel and his teenage sister Freya with her. The family move from Sydney to Newcastle, where Roy has bought a derelict house on the coast. As Roy painstakingly patches the holes in the floorboards and plasters over cracks in the walls, Maryanne believes, for a while, that they can rebuild a life together.

But Freya doesn’t want a fresh start—she just wants out—and Daniel drifts around the sprawling, run-down house in a dream, infuriating his father, who soon forgets the promises he has made.

Some cracks can never be smoothed over, and tension grows between Roy and Maryanne until their uneasy peace is ruptured—with devastating consequences.
Published 5 February 2019
ISBN 9781925603736
Format Paperback
Extent 352pp
AU Price $22.99
NZ Price $26.00

About the author

Michael Sala

Michael Sala was born in the Netherlands in 1975 to a Greek father and a Dutch mother, and first came to Australia in the 1980s. He lives in Newcastle. His critically acclaimed debut, The Last Thread, won the 2013 NSW Premier's Award for New Writing and was the regional winner (Pacific) of the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize.
MS

Also by Michael Sala

The Last Thread
See all

Praise for The Restorer

There is so much to praise about this book. Michael Sala’s prose is clear and unadorned, the setting exquisitely rendered, but it is his characters—all of them flawed and complex and deeply, deeply human—who will stay with me for a very long time. I would defy anyone to read this story and remain unmoved. The Restorer is an incredibly powerful novel and, I believe, an important one.

Hannah Kent

Michael Sala is a sensitive, perceptive observer of human relationships and I have long admired his work. The Restorer is a beautifully written novel about growing up, starting again—and how the riptide of personal history can pull us further and further from safety, no matter how hard we fight.

Charlotte Wood