Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe

by Wayne Macauley

"The rain fell hard and unending on the roof. All the ghosts of ur were sleeping. The night was as dark as a whale's belly. She passed by swiftly, cried out softly; I wasn't listening, I couldn't have heard."Bram has a reluctant story to tell. Excavating common objects from the mullock heap of a failed housing estate, he records the lives of those who lived there. One-eyed Michael, fencing contractor and ideologue, his daughter Jodie, Slug the real estate agent, Layland from the Ministry and Tony the bricklayer-in-waiting: these are just some of the players in a laconic comedy of circumstance.Prize-winning short fiction writer Wayne Macauley has made, as Peter Craven has noted, 'something almost like allegory.' His compulsive telling ensnares us in an escalating series of remarkable events. An old leather satchel holds the documents for the fatal vessel of the title.A beguilingly simple, eccentric and original novel, "Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe" is a fable of ownership, and an elegy for a dream.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Contemporary

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Wayne Macauley is the author of the highly acclaimed novels: Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe, Caravan Story and, most recently, The Cook, which was shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award, a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the Melbourne Prize Best Writing Award. His new book Demons will be available in August 2014. He lives in Melbourne.