It made life seem amazing and sprawling.``Luck don't change, love,'' observes Sam Pickles to his daughter Rose.

The first book that made me want to write. It has the surge, the sweep and momentum of a great American novel, but it's flagrantly Australian. His way with words and the way he writes is so raw and realistic and captures Australiana like no one else does. Within Winton's writings, Cloudstreet may be considered a peak, where his lyrical language, vivid sense of place and dream-like scenarios coalesce into a stunning whole. Ultimately a love letter to Australia, Cloudstreet is a compulsory and compulsive read. Kate JenningsĮccentric heights and unrepeatable genius. Reading Cloudstreet is like catching a wave. Geordie WilliamsonĪ writer of tremendous zest, warmth and humour. Gillian MearsĬloudstreet is the sole epic of contemporary Australian literature: in it, Winton paints on the same canvas as Xavier Herbert and Patrick White. Reading Cloudstreet for the first time was like a summer dream from which I wished never to wake. Thomas KeneallyĬloudstreet is a comic, poignant and intelligent tour de force. Mem FoxĪ groundbreaking Australian narrative irresistible combination of the domestic and the mythic. If you have not met these characters, this generous community, these tragedies, the humour. If you have not read Cloudstreet, your life is diminished. One of the great masterpieces of world fiction. It pulses with a sense of wonder and shines with the clear light of truth. This is that rare book, a novel of both heart and intellect.

if you have not met these characters, this generous community, these tragedies, the humour. ‘If you have not read Cloudstreet, your life is diminished. ‘One of the great masterpieces of world fiction.’ Philip Hensher Over the next twenty years they struggle and strive, laugh and curse, come apart and pull together under the same roof, and try as they can to make their lives. The Pickleses are gamblers, boozers, fractious, and unlikely landlords.Ĭhance, hardship and the war force them to swallow their dignity and share a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet. The Lambs are industrious, united and – until God seems to turn his back on their boy Fish – religious. It pulses with a sense of wonder and shines with the clear light of truth.’ Robert DreweĪfter two separate catastrophes, two very different families leave the country for the bright lights of Perth. ‘This is that rare book, a novel of both heart and intellect. Winner of the Miles Franklin Award and recognised as one of the greatest works of Australian literature, Cloudstreet is Tim Winton's sprawling, comic epic about luck and love, fortitude and forgiveness, and the magic of the everyday.

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