A revised edition of this seminal Malouf novel, now with an Afterword from the author.Frank Harland's life is centred on his great artistic gift, his passionate love for his father and four brothers, and his desire to regain the Harlands' lost prosperity. Phil Vernon, growing up alone in the midst of a demanding family, is a boy when he first meets Frank Harland, but he is inexorably drawn into the Harlands' circle. Through the interlinked lives of the two families, David Malouf explores solitude and society, possession and dispossession, the obsessions and violence of family life and love, illuminating the larger world of events and imagination.