On her first day at a new school, Lily meets Eva, one of the daughters of the infamous avant-garde painter Evan Trentham.
He and his wife are attempting to escape the stifling conservatism of 1930s Australia by inviting other like-minded artists to live and work with them at their family home. As Lily’s friendship with Eva grows, she becomes infatuated with this makeshift family and longs to truly be a part of it.
Looking back on those years later in life, Lily realises that this utopian circle involved the same themes as Evan Trentham’s Faustian bargains and terrible recompense; spectacular fortunes and falls from grace. Yet it was not Evan, nor the other artists he gathered around him, but his own daughters, who paid the debt that was owing.
The Strays is an engrossing story of ambition, sacrifice and compromised loyalties from an exciting new talent.
Please note this copy has light scuffs on the edges of the covers.
ISBN: 9781922626769
Size: Paperback, 307 pages
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Published: 2014