7.2 /10 1 Votes
Cover artist Mary Callahan Publisher Macmillan Media type Print (Cloth) Originally published 1994 Page count 377 Country Australia | 3.6/5 Goodreads Language English Publication date 1994 Pages 377 Genre Fiction Preceded by Cloudstreet | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Victorian opera and malthouse theatre presents the riders
The Riders is a novel by multi-award winning Australian author Tim Winton published in 1994. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1995.
Contents
Plot summary
The Riders tells the story of an Australian man, Fred Scully, and his 6 year old daughter Billie. Scully, as he is known, and his wife Jennifer have planned to move from Australia to a cottage they have purchased in Ireland. His wife and daughter are due to arrive in Ireland but at the airport only Billie arrives, traumatised and unable to tell her father what has happened or why her mother put her on the plane alone. The story then follows Scully and Billie as they travel around Europe retracing the steps of their previous travel, trying to find Jennifer and work out why she left them.
Themes
Iain Grandage who wrote the music for adaptation of The Riders as an opera described The Riders as follows "At its heart, The Riders is about the nature of love. It deals with questions of how well we can truly know someone; how well we can truly know ourselves."
Reviews
A review in the Kirkus Review stated that, "Emotions, character, and intellect so perfectly calibrated that a modest story of love betrayed becomes, in Winton's hands, a minor masterpiece."
The Publishers Weekly described the novel as a 'suspense thriller" and a "gut-wrenching love story" and praise his descriptions of landscapes,the energy of his prose and call Winton "stunnung".
Opera
An opera based on the novel, with libretto by Alison Croggon and music by Iain Grandage, was premiered in Melbourne in September 2014.
Film
The rights to the novel were secured by Susie Brooks-Smith in 2000. It was announced in 2012 that filming would soon begin but the project has not proceeded.