I remember really enjoying ML Stedman’s first novel, The Light Between Oceans, which I read when it was published in 2012. It’s been a fourteen year wait for her second book, but I’m pleased to say that it was definitely worth waiting for! Like the first book, which followed the lonely lives of a lighthouse keeper and his wife, A Far-flung Life (as the title suggests) is set in another remote location – a sheep station in rural Western Australia.

The novel opens on a hot summer’s day in January 1958 with Phil MacBride and his two sons, twenty-two-year-old Warren and eighteen-year-old Matt, on their way to a meeting in the nearest town – a journey that takes hours due to the vastness of the landscape. Phil’s wife, Lorna MacBride, is waiting at home on the family sheep station, Meredith Downs, with their daughter, Rosie, unaware that a terrible tragedy is taking place on the road – a kangaroo has jumped in front of the MacBride’s truck, causing an accident in which Phil and Warren are both killed and Matt, the only survivor, is left suffering from head injuries and memory loss.

As Matt begins the long process of recovery, he’s forced to come to terms with the fact that his life has now changed forever. Being the youngest son, he had been looking forward to leaving Meredith Downs and seeing the world, but that’s no longer an option – now he’ll have to step up and run the sheep station, continuing his father’s work and providing for his remaining family members. However, there’s still more trouble ahead for the MacBrides…but I’m not going to say much more about the plot, as the next traumatic incident is another pivotal moment that causes a sequence of serious effects for everyone involved.

This is a book with a lot of misery in it, then, but although it’s certainly heartbreaking at times and uncomfortable to read at others, it’s written with a warmth that stops it from becoming too unbearably bleak. I loved the characters – a lot of the focus is on first Rosie and then Matt, both people who make mistakes, do bad things (mostly unintentionally) and then have to deal with the consequences. They find different methods of coping, but each of them, in his or her own way, ends up making huge sacrifices. I was also very fond of Andy, a second generation character whom we first get to know as a child, obsessed with his rock collection, and watch grow into an adult, carrying the story forward into the future.

The secondary characters are strongly drawn as well, particularly Pete Peachey, the ‘roo shooter’, who was a prisoner of war in Japan and now lives alone in a tent at Meredith Downs, culling the kangaroos on the station. Pete offers support and friendship to the MacBride family, but is also struggling with his own problems and his own identity. Then there’s Bonnie Edquist, a geologist working for a mining company who are beginning to explore the Meredith Downs lands in search of valuable minerals. Bonnie’s arrival opens up several storylines: a possible romance; the unwelcome impact of mining on people’s homes (the MacBride’s sheep station, like many others, was leased by the government rather than owned by the family); and the devasting health impacts of asbestos.

I also loved the setting, which is vividly described, capturing the sheer size of the million-acre sheep station and the isolated lives of the people who live there. It reminded me of Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds, another family saga with a similar setting – although the plots are very different. A Far-flung Life is one of the best books I’ve read this year and despite the misery I do recommend it!

Thanks to Doubleday for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 4/20 of 20 Books of Summer

The Light Between Oceans is the story of Tom and Isabel Sherbourne, a young couple living on the remote island of Janus Rock, off the coast of Australia. Tom, who has recently returned physically unharmed from fighting in the Great War, has taken a job as lighthouse keeper on the island.

One day in 1926, a boat is washed up on the shore of Janus, with a baby girl and a dead man inside. Isabel, who has just suffered the latest in a series of miscarriages and stillbirths, sees this as a second chance and is determined to keep the baby. Tom is not so sure, but he loves his wife and she convinces him that it’s the right thing to do. Raising Lucy as their own child, it’s not long before Tom and Isabel can’t imagine life without her, but their decision to keep her leads to other important choices that have to be made and could have heartbreaking consequences for everybody involved. What if the baby’s real mother is still alive somewhere, wondering what has happened to her daughter? And how will Tom cope with his feelings of guilt over what they’ve done?

The Light Between Oceans is a very impressive debut novel from M.L. Stedman. I loved the island setting and I was given a real sense of the isolation of Tom and Isabel’s lives. The Sherbournes are completely alone on Janus Rock, apart from a few times a year when supplies are brought by boat from the mainland. It sounded like a beautiful place to live but also a very lonely, solitary existence not without its difficulties and hardships. There are a few occasions when they visit Partageuse, the closest mainland town, and this setting is also brought to life through characters such as Isabel’s parents, Bill and Violet Graysmark, and the businessman Septimus Potts. Reading this book made me aware of how few novels I have actually read that are set in Australia, which is something I would like to change.

The First World War, the long term effects on the men who fought in it and the experiences of the many people who lost their loved ones forms a small but very important part of this novel. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything about Australia’s involvement in the war and so I really liked this aspect of the book. I also found it interesting to read about the role of a lighthouse keeper and what it involved. There are some quite detailed descriptions of the various parts of the job, but none of it was too difficult to understand.

But what I loved most about this book was the way the author allowed us to sympathise with all of the main characters; it wasn’t a case of one person being entirely in the right and another in the wrong. I could see why Isabel wanted so desperately to keep Lucy but I could also understand why Tom was struggling with his conscience and how the baby’s biological mother might have felt. The novel raises so many questions…If you know that you’ve done something wrong should you try to put it right even if doing so could cause even more heartbreak? Will trying to make amends actually make things better or worse? And most importantly, what will be best for Lucy herself? These questions are difficult to answer but they are what made this book such an interesting and thought-provoking read.