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  • Banjawarn

  • By: Josh Kemp
  • Narrated by: Steve Shanahan
  • Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (10 ratings)

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Banjawarn

By: Josh Kemp
Narrated by: Steve Shanahan
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Publisher's Summary

Winner of The 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript

Garreth Hoyle is a true crime writer whose destructive love affair with hallucinogenic drugs has sent him searching for ghosts in the unforgiving mallee desert of Western Australia. Heading north through Kalgoorlie, he attempts to score off old friends from his shearing days on Banjawarn Station. His journey takes an unexpected detour when he discovers an abandoned ten-year-old girl and decides to return her to her estranged father in Leonora, instead of alerting authorities. Together they begin the road trip from hell through the scorched heart of the state’s northern goldfields.

***

Love, friendship and hope are often found in the strangest places, but forgiveness is never simple, and the past lies buried just beneath the blood red topsoil. The only question is whether Hoyle should uncover it, or run as fast as his legs can take him.

Banjawarn is an unsettling debut from Josh Kemp. Echoing Cormac McCarthy’s haunting border trilogy and narrative vernacular that recalls the sparse lyricism of Randolph Stow and Tim Winton, this is a darkly funny novel that earns its place amongst the stable of Australian gothic literature.

The conflation of violence and justice here is very like a western, as the boundaries between good and evil shimmer and dissolve.

Kemp writes with a compelling voice, the kind you want to follow into dark places, no matter how gruesome things get.

—Jennifer Mills, Australian Book Review

©2023 Josh Kemp (P)2023 Spotify Audiobooks

What listeners say about Banjawarn

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Raw

This book is the best I’ve listened to in a long time. It consumed me and my whole heart. Thanks Josh Kemp, looking forward to your next novel. The narrating was A+

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Horrifyingly addictive

I wasn’t sure at first if I’d selected the right kind of story, but quickly I realised I’d found an absolute diamond. It is so confronting yet delicate, emotive and utterly compelling.
Steve Shanahan as narrator is always 5 star.

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Addictive

i wasn't too sure about this book at first but i love the way this narrator tells a story so gave it a go and loved it. The author did a great job at making me love the seemingly unlovable characters.

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Gripping and raw

Josh knows this landscape like the back of his hand, and it shows. A beautifully written, captivating piece of work deserving of all the accolades it's received so far.

Brilliant narration as well.

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thrilling violence

the conclusion was gripping, it was built around historical events, with some key moments in WAs current history.

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