The Wrong Child cover art

The Wrong Child

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Wrong Child

By: Barry Gornell
Narrated by: Wiliam Gaminara
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $21.99

Buy Now for $21.99

About this listen

Twenty-two of the 23 children in a rural village die in a disaster. By chance, the 'wrong' child, Dog Evans, lives. Crippled with survivor's guilt, his parents abandon Evans to a feral life at the margins. He is shunned by those left behind, for whom his presence is a daily insult, a reminder of unbearable loss.

As the action moves from past to present and back, we learn what took place and its shocking consequences for both Dog Evans and the wider community. Gornell's forensic gaze dissects the lives of the bereaved, fractured relationships and existences frozen the day their children died....

Deborah Cutter, separated from her husband, John, numbs her pain with alcohol and sex. Local postman Nugget holds tight to the hope that the Evans house contains valuable secrets. Parish priest Father Wittin is an embarrassing irrelevance....

As grief turns to rage, the villagers' insatiable desire for catharsis, one final blood sacrifice, becomes unstoppable. The master of 'rural noir', Barry Gornell has created a mesmerising, heartbreaking examination of rural life with a remarkable note of hope within the darkness.

©2016 Barry Gornell (P)2016 Audible, Ltd
Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Suspense Thriller & Suspense Village Fiction
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.