Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Fern Tattoo
    Unavailable
    The Fern Tattoo
    Unavailable
    The Fern Tattoo
    Ebook393 pages6 hours

    The Fern Tattoo

    By David Brooks

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    Evidently she knew who I was, or thought she did, since I had apparently needed no introduction and certainly hadn’t received one She told stories. One could almost say she rushed into them, on the merest of pretexts, as if the world was ending very shortly and they had to be got through before it happened. A century of family secrets starts to unravel when Benedict Waters is summoned to an audience with an old friend of his mother. He is seduced by her storytelling and it takes time and an astonishing revelation before he realises that it is his own family he has been hearing about, his own life that is being undone. From the Blue Mountains to the Hawkesbury and from Sydney to the south coast of New South Wales, The Fern Tattoo takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey through several generations of three families. We meet a range of extraordinary characters including a bigamist bishop, a librarian tattooed from neck to knee, a young girl who kills her best friend in a tragic shooting accident and a pair of lovers who live each other’s lives for years after they have separated. As with all families, there are lost loves, tragic passions and unspoken - sometimes unspeakable - histories. The Fern Tattoo is a beguiling novel about the certainty of fate and the randomness of love that announces David Brooks’ return as one of Australia’s most distinctive literary novelists.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Queensland Press
    Release dateNov 1, 2015
    ISBN9780702257612
    Unavailable
    The Fern Tattoo
    Author

    David Brooks

    David Brooks writes a biweekly Op-Ed column for The New York Times and appears regularly on PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and NPR's All Things Considered. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

    Read more from David Brooks

    Related to The Fern Tattoo

    Related ebooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Concerning The Future Of Souls

      Mar 19, 2024

      As a toddler she had caused a sensation in her family when she announced she wanted to live in a little hole like the ant. Not an ant, the ant. This might have been misheard. She was an easygoing child, not particularly thoughtful and stubbornly inar

      13 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Aug 9, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Solving Riddles, Reading Poems

      Nov 28, 2017

      Solving Riddles, Reading Poems
      6 min read

    • Article

      Read A Sneak Peek of IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES

      Sep 6, 2023

      The murderer arrived by boat. He came gently, with a soft tread and beautifully clean hands. He strode past a group of men and women hauling in a catch of fire-fish, his knife out of sight in his pocket. They glanced round at him, but he only nodded

      4 min read

    • Article

      Nature’s Way

      Nov 3, 2023

      Nature’s Way
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Writer extra YOU CAN’T FIND THIS IN PRINT.

      Feb 1, 2020

      1. BIRDS, AGAIN ashwell, massachusetts, 1871 Wonders, wonders! —miles pearson, the darkening glass (p. 4) The first of the birds Caroline mistook for her own mind’s work. When the streak of red crossed the kitchen windowpane, fast, disastrous-bright,

      9 min read

    • Article

      Stop Hating on Adjectives!

      Jun 12, 2019

      A common admonition in creative writing pedagogy is, “Cut as many adjectives as possible.” I propose that this rule springs from mere prejudice. The post Stop Hating on Adjectives! appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Unfinished Portrait

      Dec 1, 2018

      I SHALL NEVER finish what would have been my twentieth novel. When I started it, it was to be called Iridescence, but after I had been working on it for a while I changed the working title to Butterfly. The opening image was of bubbles floating over

      7 min read

    • Article

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work

      Dec 15, 2018

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work
      6 min read

    • Article

      Brontez Purnell, Fiction

      Mar 21, 2018

      Brontez Purnell, Fiction
      3 min read

    • Article

      Giant Leaps

      Apr 24, 2022

      Giant Leaps
      2 min read

    • Article

      How the Lark Got Her Crest

      May 30, 2023

      How the Lark Got Her Crest
      15 min read

    • Article

      The Library of Gromma

      Jul 10, 2023

      Zac was sweating and panting as he reached the top of the hill. The crooked beams of the library loomed over him. He dropped the buckets of water, swore at the few drops that spilled, and escaped the piercing morning sun in the shade of the library.

      22 min read

    • Article

      A Teenager, Strangers And A Pair Of Apes

      Oct 26, 2023

      PERHAPS AS A FUNCTION OF MY OWN journey through middle age, I have become increasingly interested recently in late work. This is the writing that comes when a writer has passed what blurb-composers call “the peak of their powers”, but at the same tim

      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2019

      Four Poems
      7 min read

    • Article

      This One So Loved

      May 9, 2019

      This One So Loved
      9 min read

    • Article

      THE Dark Light

      Oct 28, 2020

      THE Dark Light
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Library Of Gromma

      Feb 10, 2021

      Zac was sweating and panting as he reached the top of the hill. The crooked beams of the library loomed over him. He dropped the buckets of water, swore at the few drops that spilt, and escaped the piercing morning sun in the shade of the library. He

      22 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Fern Tattoo

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words