The Albatross

A big-hearted, beautifully written, utterly engaging novel about love, fear, second chances and the hardest shot in golf, from a sparkling new Australian voice.

'The albatross is just about the rarest thing in golf - two shots on a par 5. A hole-in-one, anywhere on the course, is just a random event, a fluke. It's not your own doing. But an albatross . . . It's a thing of beauty. One. Two. It must be very deliberate, very thoughtful, one superb shot followed by another. You can say it's got to take a degree of belief. You've got to really want it, and aim for it, and try for it.'

When Primrose makes an unplanned detour into a dilapidated suburban golf course called Whistles, she has no idea that the past will come rushing back at her, bringing every detail of her life into stark focus.

At 36, her marriage is teetering from illness and infidelity. A visit from her commanding brother-in-law looms ominously on the horizon. And by a twist of fate, Peter, the boy she loved twenty years ago, is now living across the street. Primrose cannot escape the increasing demands to make a choice, between her first love and her marriage, duty and desire, fear and freedom.

Slowly, the grounds of Whistles, and a sport she proves to be terrible at, become her meditation and cure.

'The Albatross is a sinewy, compelling vine of a novel, twining into unanticipated crevices and captivating the reader until the very last page. Brilliant. This is a spectacularly good book; funny, tense, observant, and equipped with a truly memorable heroine.' — Annabel Crabb

'The first thing you want to do when you finish The Albatross is find the nearest rooftop and shout, "Primrose!" It's an understatement to call her the narrator of this smart, beguiling novel. Its warmth and humour are her warmth and humour, as are its disquieting undertones... [This is] is a study in the art of the swerve — into Primrose's marriage, into her past, into brilliant discussions of potential and belonging and the everyday question of being happy, or not. There are secrets beneath all this, and the final mix is that rare book that manages to be both surprising and subtle — a quality that's utterly Primrosian.' — VPLA Unpublished Manuscript Prize judges report