House of Given

Winner, Best Fiction IP Picks 2006. House of Given is a richly textured story illuminating the shifting boundaries of family trees and personal identity. Young Finbar, convinced that he is connected to this world by a mere thread, is determined to overcome obstacles of distrust and self-doubt, constructing his personal edifice not from earth or wood but out of story and imagination. As he assembles a multi-generational saga, he discovers that his bloodlines amount to a thousand and one interlocking narratives. In his Scheherazade-like attempt to stave off doom, he appoints himself a bard of parallel old cultures transplanted to an even older land. Inside each uncovered ancestry, he finds story at its core; forming part of family DNA and the atomic structure of every mythology and civilization. House of Given is an Australian novel for the new millennium, dovetailing a range of immigrant experiences with fresh insight into the Australian landscape. Essential for schools and libraries; perfect for students of cultural studies or history.