The Secret River - Kate Grenville

I was stunned by the quality of this novel, probably the best Australian work I've read since, ooh, Oscar and Lucinda I guess.

It is a foundational Australian story about a convict and his family being sent from London to New South Wales and eventually making good with devastating consequences for the indigenous people. Obviously it is an allegory for the European settlement/invasion of this continent, but Grenville always keeps the characters to the fore allowing the story to work brilliantly in its own terms.

Both unblinkingly brutal and unstintingly humane, this is a truly great contemporary novel.