I found the pacing for this a bit too slow which was a shame as there were moments that this book was a pure joy to read. The writing was good for the most part but there was not enough for me to connect with.

Gorgeous book, absolutely loved it. Really evocative writing that made me cry several times (and I never cry at books).

A gentle and delightful read. Professor Frederick Lothian, retired structural engineer, has given up on life and removed himself to a retirement community which he hates with a passion. Events conspire to rekindle his purpose and even bring him some satisfaction if not entirely happiness. Beautifully written and told with style and humour.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Extinctions is an interesting read. On the surface it is the story of a lonely widower named Professor Frederick Lothian who has just moved, rather unwillingly, into Senior’s housing. He is in denial about the move and keeps all of his furnishings from his previous home scattered around his new apartment in piles and boxes. He tells himself that this is his way of keeping these items for his daughter but in reality, it is a way to distance himself from where he actually is. He is not into speaking to his neighbours either and does his best to avoid human contact. This is true to the pattern of most of his life.
His daughter is on the opposite side of the world, doing research into extinctions. The author uses the theme of extinctions in many ways through the book, and many things have to come to an end. The main one of which is Lothan’s solitary existence as circumstances force him to reach out and do good for a neighbor in need.
The story is thought provoking. The characters are interesting, even if not deserving of our sympathy from the beginning. However, it is a book worth reading.

I wondered for quite some time where this story might be headed and it was not in the direction I expected. It seemed at first to be the musings of a widower in his later years, not a very likeable character mulling over the behaviour and circumstances that had brought him to a lonely life in a retirement village surrounded by people he disdained. There is the sense throughout the early chapters that there are events he is repressing and it is only when his gregarious neighbour Jan foists herself upon him and gets him talking and thinking that we start to understand what those events might be. His poor wife - what a monstrously selfish and insensitive husband and father he was. Slowly he comes to realise this and at the same time the trauma of his own childhood is revealed. I began to sympathise with him. He begins to try to make amends, too late for his wife but perhaps not for his son and daughter. I liked the open ending, so much to hope for.

The major niggle for me is the daughter Caroline. In her we have a character who is not sufficiently realised for my taste - she represents an aspect of the story (and the extinctions references) but doesn’t really come into her own. Apart from that, though, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it.

My first thought as I was reading this book was that it was so terribly pleasant to once again be reading a “real” book. The kind of book that your Literature teacher references when bashing into your (perhaps) juvenile skull that “yes you must read this book, and yes you will thank me later”. EXTINCTIONS has so much to offer and yet the action within is not played out upon a grand stage of intrigue and melodrama. It doesn’t need to.

Negotiating with his own intelligent self the myriad of ways in which a new resident must submit to the ebbs and flows of retirement village life, retired concrete engineer Professor Frederick Lothian is a man who once knew his own mind. Very very well. Frederick has, for now, shelved the unpleasant task of self-examining his previous life decisions as even when they were happening, that particular form of navel gazing never seemed to a valuable use of Fredericks’ learned time. Life always somehow did progress forward in its own way without the need for Frederick to pay close and constant attention to the people around him. Frederick’s deceased wife was always the one who managed to keep tabs on the family; all those monotonous and repetitive activities required to be attended to in order to propel a married couple and their two offspring through life. Living alone, Frederick now finds himself with the time to pluck family memories out of mental storage for a quick lookover, and wishes that he was able to unpack the physical leftovers from his previous life in the same fashion. Things are getting a little cramped in his new, smaller, physical space.

Jan, the neighbour, is an affront to Frederick’s sensibilities. The sound of Jan’s pet birds manages to infiltrate Frederick’s walls and from this Frederick makes the sound assumption that this person is not someone he wants to meet. Fate however takes that swiftly out of Frederick’s hands and in dealing with his new and messy reality, the mental walls between past and present experiences are fast dissolving.

So much to unpack in EXTINCTIONS. Author Josephine Wilson writes with such confidence and warmth about this arrogant (yet also insecure) man, that we can’t help but recognize Frederick’s struggles as struggles of worth. Everyone faces them eventually and for Frederick, the kicking once again into engaged living is sharp, immensely painful and not at all foreseen. Life is supposed to wind down at this later stage, not present so much for a elderly person to process. You will need to mosey your way into feeling affection for Frederick. He is who he is, and views the world from the lense of a former academic who as stereotype would dictate, does not suffer fools easily.

EXTINCTIONS is an intelligent and very accessible work of fiction. The novel’s supposedly humble setting is actually, for anyone who has ever dealt with placing a family member in a retirement facility or has experience of living in one themselves, anything but humble and unassuming. Life on a micro scale, as can often newly be when busy people find themselves taken out of their larger and more professional environments, becomes overwhelming for its lack of stimulation and its focus on what is frankly was once never that interesting. But by necessity, it does become so.

EXTINCTIONS was the winner of the 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

(EXTINCTIONS is also another reminder why every single serious reader out there needs their own Eames reproduction. Readers need furniture (equipment really) that is up to consistent solid use).

There are several book prizes where I read at least the short list and, in some cases, the full long list. There are other book prizes that I follow and where my own reading overlaps with the selected books. And there are others that I look at with interest but make no effort to read the books. So, when I came across Extinctions on NetGalley which won a prize that I have never (knowingly) engaged with, I decided it was worth taking a look at and submitted a request.

The prize we are talking about is the Miles Franklin Award and it is given to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". It is no surprise, then, to learn that this book is set (mainly) in Australia. The blurb gives you the basics of how the book starts. Fred Lothian is settling into a retirement village. He is the quintessential “grumpy old man” (although he hates being told he is old - he is only 69, after all). Events around him unfold in a way that forces him into contact with his neighbour, Jan. The blurb then goes on to say that "…he begins to realise the damage done by the accumulation of a lifetime's secrets and lies, and to comprehend his own shortcomings. Finally, Frederick Lothian has the opportunity to build something meaningful for the ones he loves."

For me, this blurb does the book a huge disservice. Mainly I say this because Fred is not the only subject of the book. Indeed, if he was, I doubt very much that I would have finished it. I read the first quarter of the book and nearly gave up. At that point, I looked at some of the reviews for some help in deciding whether to carry on. That was a bad idea because a lot of them seemed to say the first part of the book was the good part! I decided to keep going anyway.

Once the book stops focussing on Fred, it becomes a lot more interesting. This might be me being oversensitive, but the female protagonists are a lot better realised than the male (of whom Fred is the main one). But the main reason it becomes more interesting is because the subject matter seems to change. Instead of a miserable old man bemoaning his lot and reminiscing about his past, we move to his daughter Caroline who is adopted and comes from an Aboriginal heritage. It becomes a book about identity and acceptance, not just regarding Caroline, but also Fred’s son, Callum, who is brain damaged after a traffic accident. The stories of peripheral characters also contribute to this.

So, for a while, at least, it looks like it is heading towards being a much more interesting book.

But the biggest issue I had with the book is that it leaves so much unresolved. I am normally a great fan of loose ends in a novel: I like being able to speculate about what happens to characters and I enjoy making up continuations for some of the stories that aren’t quite resolved. But this is a whole new ball game. I spent a bit of time in a Google-led search trying to find out if perhaps this is the first of a planned series of books. It would make sense to me if it is. I can’t really explain why without introducing spoilers, but I will simply say that there are several key plots that are introduced and then not developed. There are several key decisions characters make or are about to make that have significant implications. If there is a part two, it sort of makes sense. If there isn’t, it feels to me like a very incomplete book. Given that I can’t discover at the moment whether or not there is a part two, I can only rate it on the basis that it is a standalone book.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The first two thirds of the book were great, but things ended a little too abruptly for my liking. It felt like there could have been at least 25% more story here - I would have loved to have heard more about Caroline’s reunion with her Dad, for example. Really well developed characters though, particularly Jan, who deserves a sitcom all of her own.

Frederick Lothian is a retired engineer specialising in concrete who has moved unwillingly into a retirement village after the death of his wife. He has a difficult relationship with his adopted daughter Caroline and an almost non-existent one with his son Callum, who was severely brain-damaged in an accident many years before. There is nothing likeable or sympathetic about Frederick Lothian. He knows that himself. He’s an intelligent man but can’t relate to other people. He’s a damaged man who damages those nearest to him but doesn’t seem to ever be introspective enough to face up to what he has done. Gradually, and with expert pacing, the back story is revealed and if this reader at least found it hard to feel sorry for Fred, understanding more about him at least explains his actions. When Fred reluctantly begins to become friendly with his next door neighbour, the lively and empathetic Janet, there is perhaps a possibility that Fred will find redemption, but maybe it is just too late.
There are some weighty themes addressed in this wonderfully engaging and entertaining novel – death, ageing, grief, loss, family, disability, adoption (Caroline is part of Australia's Stolen Generation, which adds another layer to the story) – but these weighty themes are tackled with a light and sure touch and are expertly blended into the narrative, never becoming tendentious. It’s a dark and disturbing novel, but not without its lighter moments. Fred can unwittingly be very amusing at times. I wasn’t totally convinced by the ending, but overall this is a well-written and intelligent novel, and a real page-turner.