Coming Rain

"Moving and brilliant."—Australian Book Review

"Daisley's prose possesses a shimmering, allusive beauty reminiscent of John McGahern."—Weekend Australian

"Coming Rain shimmers with dusty red heat. . . . Tune in to the distinctive rhythm of the prose and you'll enjoy the rich, subtle rewards of a really good book."—Listener

Western Australia, the wheatbelt. Lew McLeod has been travelling and working with Painter Hayes since he was a boy. Shearing, charcoal burning—whatever comes. Painter made him his first pair of shoes. It's a hard and uncertain life, but it's the only one he knows.

But Lew's a grown man now. And with this latest job, shearing for John Drysdale and his daughter Clara, everything will change.

Stephen Daisley writes in lucid, rippling prose of how things work, and why; of the profound satisfaction in hard work done with care, of love and friendship and the damage that both contain.

Both brutal and poignant, this is an unforgettable novel for fans of Cormac McCarthy, Richard Ford, and Kent Haruf.

Stephen Daisley has worked on sheep and cattle stations, on oil and gas rigs, and driving trucks. His first novel, Traitor, won the 2011 Prime Minister's Literary Award.