To Name Those Lost


To Name Those Lost is a 2014 novel by the Australian author Rohan Wilson.
The novel is a sequel to the author's 2011 novel The Roving Party.
It was the winner of the 2015 Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction.

Synopsis

The novel is set in Tasmania in 1874, forty-five years after the events depicted in The Roving Party. Thomas Toosey is now sixty-years-old and has decided to give up his old life and search for his motherless 12-year-old son in Launceston.

Critical reception

In The Saturday Paper the reviewer JF described the novel as "There is a justice in Wilson's resolution of this dark and vigorous tale; though the ex-convicts don't escape the fatal shore, there is redemption for the next generation. Wilson's superbly taut novel keeps up its pace with spare punctuation and brutal dialogue in a vigorously drawn landscape feverish with the heat of a bushfire summer."
David Whish-Wilson, writing in Australian Book Review noted that "Wilson's characters are not ciphers standing in for broader social forces and themes. All of them are fully humanised, their motives and hopes and frailties convincingly explored," and goes on conclude "There is a purity of vision in To Name Those Lost's consistency of tone and relentless drive to capture the dark poetry of dangerous times."

Publication history

After the novel's initial publication in Australia by Allen and Unwin it was reprinted in the USA in 2017 by Europa Editions.

Awards