Publication
Audible Studios (2016)
Collections
Awards
Davitt Award (Longlist — 2017)
Ned Kelly Award (Shortlist — 2017)
Australian Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — Literary Fiction — 2017)
Barbara Jefferis Award (Shortlist — 2018)
The Indie Book Award (Longlist — 2017)
Description
It wasn't just one person who went missing, it was two people. Two very different people. They were there, and then they were gone, as if through a crack in the sky. After that, in a small town like Goodwood, where we had what Nan called 'a high density of acquaintanceship', everything stopped. Or at least it felt that way. The normal feeling of things stopped. Goodwood is a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. It's a place where it's impossible to keep a secret. In 1992, when Jean Brown is seventeen, a terrible thing happens. Two terrible things. Rosie White, the coolest girl in town, vanishes overnight. One week later, Goodwood's most popular resident, Bart McDonald, sets off on a fishing trip and never comes home. People die in Goodwood, of course, but never like this. They don't just disappear. As the intensity of speculation about the fates of Rosie and Bart heightens, Jean, who is keeping secrets of her own, and the rest of Goodwood are left reeling. Rich in character and complexity, its humour both droll and tender, Goodwood is a compelling ride into a small community, torn apart by dark rumours and mystery.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member bsquaredinoz
Although the specific, eponymous town of Holly Throsby’s debut novel GOODWOOD does not exist in reality, her depiction of small town Australian life oozes the kind of authenticity that can only derive from genuine affection for its real world counterparts. In part the book is a coming of age
At school, the normal feeling of things had stopped and the unease had set in. The news of Rosie White was everywhere. It had travelled down the telephone lines and across dinner tables onto the pages of the Gather Region Advocate. It had taken up residence in the minds of students and teachers. It sat in the silence between sentences; in the things that people did not say. Goodwood had never been visited by such collective worry, and we were not familiar with the burden of the unknown.
Given that Throsby is better known as an award winning singer-songwriter it ought not to be surprising that GOODWOOD has a poetic, often lyrical quality to its writing. The repetition of certain phrases or images for example serves a functional purpose in helping get across that there is a kind of rhythm to the town’s life, but it also reminded me of the way a chorus works in music. Overall the writing is quite simple I suppose but I would take issue with those who have labelled it simplistic. To me it felt like Throsby had chosen the right language and tone for this particular story. Language laden with artifice or dense phrases would have been all wrong. And the book is very, very readable. I devoured it in a couple of sittings.
The dedicated fan of traditional crime fiction might be disappointed with GOODWOOD’s lack of procedural elements. Or even its lack of obvious crime given that whether or not anything criminal has taken place is unclear until the very end of the book. But what the book does have is a very careful unpicking of the big and small secrets that people keep. Even people in small towns where everyone knows everything about everyone. Throsby shows what superhuman effort can be needed to tell. Whether it was Jean screwing up the courage to tell the town’s policeman what she had found in the clearing, or permanently frightened Doe Murray who had to try 26 times before she summoned the will to leave her house and make her own report to the same policeman these portraits were outstandingly done. And there is suspense here, partly because the book isn’t following any well-worn path so the seasoned reader’s assumptions about who’s probably done what to whom are likely to be off-base.
Having been underwhelmed recently by crime novels written by people famous in other fields, I didn’t really have huge expectations for GOODWOOD but I was pleasantly surprised by its thoughtful and authentic feel. Its depiction of the town’s mysteries being solved in large part through waiting for people’s secrets to come bubbling to the surface has a real ring of truth to it. As does the picture of the town as a whole – both before and after the disappearances. Top reading indeed.
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story and in part a crime one, but mostly it is a story of place. A sad, beautiful and whimsical character study of Goodwood. A town that was peaceful and carefree before. Before teenager Rosie White said goodnight to her parents and was never seen again. And before, only a week later, the much-loved local butcher seemingly drowned while out fishing, though without a body his fate was as uncertain as Rosie’s. Jean Brown, a year younger than Rosie and narrator of the town’s story tells as that her home is irrevocably changed by these eventsAt school, the normal feeling of things had stopped and the unease had set in. The news of Rosie White was everywhere. It had travelled down the telephone lines and across dinner tables onto the pages of the Gather Region Advocate. It had taken up residence in the minds of students and teachers. It sat in the silence between sentences; in the things that people did not say. Goodwood had never been visited by such collective worry, and we were not familiar with the burden of the unknown.
Given that Throsby is better known as an award winning singer-songwriter it ought not to be surprising that GOODWOOD has a poetic, often lyrical quality to its writing. The repetition of certain phrases or images for example serves a functional purpose in helping get across that there is a kind of rhythm to the town’s life, but it also reminded me of the way a chorus works in music. Overall the writing is quite simple I suppose but I would take issue with those who have labelled it simplistic. To me it felt like Throsby had chosen the right language and tone for this particular story. Language laden with artifice or dense phrases would have been all wrong. And the book is very, very readable. I devoured it in a couple of sittings.
The dedicated fan of traditional crime fiction might be disappointed with GOODWOOD’s lack of procedural elements. Or even its lack of obvious crime given that whether or not anything criminal has taken place is unclear until the very end of the book. But what the book does have is a very careful unpicking of the big and small secrets that people keep. Even people in small towns where everyone knows everything about everyone. Throsby shows what superhuman effort can be needed to tell. Whether it was Jean screwing up the courage to tell the town’s policeman what she had found in the clearing, or permanently frightened Doe Murray who had to try 26 times before she summoned the will to leave her house and make her own report to the same policeman these portraits were outstandingly done. And there is suspense here, partly because the book isn’t following any well-worn path so the seasoned reader’s assumptions about who’s probably done what to whom are likely to be off-base.
Having been underwhelmed recently by crime novels written by people famous in other fields, I didn’t really have huge expectations for GOODWOOD but I was pleasantly surprised by its thoughtful and authentic feel. Its depiction of the town’s mysteries being solved in large part through waiting for people’s secrets to come bubbling to the surface has a real ring of truth to it. As does the picture of the town as a whole – both before and after the disappearances. Top reading indeed.
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LibraryThing member smik
An interesting novel just on the edge of crime fiction. The reader is never sure whether a crime has taken place or not. I found it a read that you had to take slowly just so that you wouldn't miss anything important.
We see life in the small town of Goodwood in rural Victoria through the eyes of
The town residents largely regard the town as a safe haven, somewhere where crimes can't occur, where young people can largely roam without fear of attack. In fact a number of the residents including Jean's mother have returned to Goodwood after a time away. It is a small town where everybody knows everybody-else, and most "nasty" characters are identified and avoided.
Jeanie doesn't always understand what she has observed and she is distracted by the arrival of a new girl in town.
When a second person disappears, it seems that something is seriously wrong. The town has turned into a place of danger.
A lovely read, lots of humour, and still enough mystery to keep this crime fiction addict engaged.
We see life in the small town of Goodwood in rural Victoria through the eyes of
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Jean Brown, in her final year of high school. Rosie White, a year older than Jean, is the first to disappear. Her mother goes to wake her one Sunday morning and her bed is empty and her window wide open. Rumours fly thick and fast and the town is divided in opinion on whether she has run away or whether she has been taken, and is even perhaps dead.The town residents largely regard the town as a safe haven, somewhere where crimes can't occur, where young people can largely roam without fear of attack. In fact a number of the residents including Jean's mother have returned to Goodwood after a time away. It is a small town where everybody knows everybody-else, and most "nasty" characters are identified and avoided.
Jeanie doesn't always understand what she has observed and she is distracted by the arrival of a new girl in town.
When a second person disappears, it seems that something is seriously wrong. The town has turned into a place of danger.
A lovely read, lots of humour, and still enough mystery to keep this crime fiction addict engaged.
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LibraryThing member murderbydeath
I received this book free from the publisher with no expectation of a review and my thoughts below are unbiased towards either author or publisher. This is an Uncorrected Proof, so what I read might not be exactly what gets published.
Lyrical. Meandering. Tragic. Odd.
Those are the first four words
Lyrical because the prose is written like a song, or like a truly beautiful, haunting story set in the deep South (USA). I kept flashing back to Jacob Have I Loved, although I can't for the life of me say why. If it weren't for the heavy use of Australian-specific idioms, slang, brand names, etc., I'd have sworn this was small-town South. As it was, the narrator's voice in my head insisted on having a distinctly Savannah lilt to it.
Meandering because this story meanders. It's not in any rush to get where it's going and if you are, well, there's frustration ahead. The narrator, Jeannie, tells the story in the omnipotent first-person past, as though she was sitting in a rocking chair on her front porch with all the time in the world. This fits in beautifully with the lyrical writing; it's a slow and lazy build-up and its brilliance is in the way the tension slithers in and starts to squeeze, ever so slowly, tighter around the reader. No angst; no inner dialogue.
Tragic because, well, you knew it couldn't end well right? But while the reader and Goodwood find out what happened to the two missing people, there's almost more tragedy when the book ends than there was when it began. Bad things are left unresolved; not everybody in Goodwood gets a happy ending.
Odd. This might be more me than the book. It definitely has a Twin Peaks vibe to it, but also take into account that I've not read anything quite like this before so it feels very fresh, very different and very...odd. I think it's all a good odd though.
If asked about that half star, it's a combination of two things:
1.While I had no idea how the mysteries would end, it was abundantly obvious from the start that:
(show spoiler)
2. The romance, while beautifully written, served no purpose to the plot; it did add a touch of lightness, but there was enough wry humour throughout the narrative to keep things from being gothic.
I'll readily admit I opened this book with a lot of trepidation, but Throsby really made it work and I was sucked in completely; this turned out to be one of those ignore-your-husband-when-he's-talking reads, except for when I had to ask him to translate the vernacular, which even after 10 years Down Under was often.
So if a lyrical, meandering, tragic, odd mystery sounds intriguing, and you're prepared for a lot of Aussie-speak, I'd recommend this book without reservation. It's good! (bonzer!)
Lyrical. Meandering. Tragic. Odd.
Those are the first four words
Show More
that came into my head when trying to figure out how to review this book.Lyrical because the prose is written like a song, or like a truly beautiful, haunting story set in the deep South (USA). I kept flashing back to Jacob Have I Loved, although I can't for the life of me say why. If it weren't for the heavy use of Australian-specific idioms, slang, brand names, etc., I'd have sworn this was small-town South. As it was, the narrator's voice in my head insisted on having a distinctly Savannah lilt to it.
Meandering because this story meanders. It's not in any rush to get where it's going and if you are, well, there's frustration ahead. The narrator, Jeannie, tells the story in the omnipotent first-person past, as though she was sitting in a rocking chair on her front porch with all the time in the world. This fits in beautifully with the lyrical writing; it's a slow and lazy build-up and its brilliance is in the way the tension slithers in and starts to squeeze, ever so slowly, tighter around the reader. No angst; no inner dialogue.
Tragic because, well, you knew it couldn't end well right? But while the reader and Goodwood find out what happened to the two missing people, there's almost more tragedy when the book ends than there was when it began. Bad things are left unresolved; not everybody in Goodwood gets a happy ending.
Odd. This might be more me than the book. It definitely has a Twin Peaks vibe to it, but also take into account that I've not read anything quite like this before so it feels very fresh, very different and very...odd. I think it's all a good odd though.
If asked about that half star, it's a combination of two things:
1.While I had no idea how the mysteries would end, it was abundantly obvious from the start that:
(show spoiler)
2. The romance, while beautifully written, served no purpose to the plot; it did add a touch of lightness, but there was enough wry humour throughout the narrative to keep things from being gothic.
I'll readily admit I opened this book with a lot of trepidation, but Throsby really made it work and I was sucked in completely; this turned out to be one of those ignore-your-husband-when-he's-talking reads, except for when I had to ask him to translate the vernacular, which even after 10 years Down Under was often.
So if a lyrical, meandering, tragic, odd mystery sounds intriguing, and you're prepared for a lot of Aussie-speak, I'd recommend this book without reservation. It's good! (bonzer!)
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LibraryThing member jhullie
Goodwood is like any small Australian town, I felt at home there while reading about it. Holly Throsby has a particular talent for language and her turn of phrase is compelling. I found myself sharing quotes on social media and re-reading passages because they were so well written. A thumbs up from
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me Show Less
LibraryThing member Fliss88
Difficult one for me to review. This is not my usual genre of book but I wanted to give it a go. I found it held my interest but wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. Small town community where the disappearance of two of the locals unsettles everyone and suspicion and accusations are cast
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everywhere. Show Less
LibraryThing member siri51
Story of a small Australian town with characters that hide secrets, slowly discovered after two people go missing.
LibraryThing member Mercef
I listened to the audio version and this may have coloured my view of the story. Not much happens in this small, Australian country town so the locals are scandalised when two people go missing.
I found this a bit dreary and uninspiring and wasn’t much interested in the mystery. But what really
I found this a bit dreary and uninspiring and wasn’t much interested in the mystery. But what really
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gave this the two star rating was the poor editing of the narration. Really - no one says “post-HEW-muss-lee” (posthumously) and no one goes fishing for “breem.” Show Less
Language
Original language
English