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'Soldiers have come to the village.
Ren looked up, avoiding Barlow’s words, resting her eyes on the pines that crowded the sky, swamp-green, thick, heavy with resin that stuck to skin and cleared throats, nostrils, eyes.
Barlow was sitting on a large rock. When she didn’t answer, he kept talking.
They’re after something—they won’t say what. But it’s up here. On the mountain.
'REN lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting and trading—and forgetting. But when a young soldier comes to the mountains in search of a local myth, Ren is inexorably drawn into her impossible mission.
'As their lives entwine, unravel and erupt—as myths merge with reality—both Ren and the soldier are forced to confront what they regret, what they love, and what they fear.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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The Saddest of Stories, Beautifully Told : Your Guide to the Miles Franklin 2021 Shortlist
2021
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 15 July 2021; The Guardian Australia , 15 July 2021; -
Locus Looks at Books : Catherine Coldiron
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Locus , May vol. 86 no. 5 2021; (p. 18)
— Review of The Rain Heron 2020 single work novel 'Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron is a heartcracker of a book, a near-future fable about resources, captivity, and human nature. Humans behave at their very best and their very worst under Robbie Arnott’s pen, giving when they have nothing and taking when they have everything. It’s a shimmering, luminescent novel, difficult to absorb in one sitting and impossible to forget.' (Introduction) -
[Review] The Rain Heron
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Aurealis , no. 138 2021;
— Review of The Rain Heron 2020 single work novel -
y
Robbie Arnott on The Rain Heron
Marie Matteson
(interviewer),
Melbourne
:
Readings
,
2020
23470585
2020
single work
podcast
interview
'Robbie Arnott chats with Readings bookseller Marie Matteson about his second novel, The Rain Heron. This conversation was recorded online over Skype during the Covid-19 crisis.' (Production summary)
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Millenarian Pastoral
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2020;
— Review of The Rain Heron 2020 single work novel 'If reality can be said to have a genre, that genre is not realism. Reality is dystopian. It is an outlandish disaster movie. It is a sadistic horror story, a terrifying nightmare, a surreal farrago, an appalling farce. It is a poorly written conspiracy thriller, in which the world is run by evil nincompoops who are so smug and lazy they can’t be bothered hiding their corruption. It is like living through Nineteen Eighty-Four and Endgame and Soylent Green all at once, except everyone is trapped in a clown car being driven over a cliff. Reality is many things, but it is not realistic.'
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Rippling Outward : An Imaginative Allegorical Novel
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 422 2020; (p. 31)
— Review of The Rain Heron 2020 single work novel'In an unnamed land under the thrall of a mysterious coup, mountain-dweller Ren wants only to live off the grid, undisturbed by human contact. Ren’s familiarity with the natural world becomes a liability when a band of soldiers comes seeking information that only she can provide: the whereabouts of a fabled bird with the ability to make it rain.' (Introduction)
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Robbie Arnott The Rain Heron
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 13-19 June 2020;
— Review of The Rain Heron 2020 single work novel'Set in an unnamed country that has recently undergone a violent coup, Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron is a novel of a land suffused with wild animal magic: a heron that can create vast storms; a species of squid whose ink has miraculous properties and must be harvested through sanguine ritual. Ren, seeking to escape the world, has for the past half-decade made her home in a small, wild corner of this place. Soon, though, her isolation is disturbed by a group of soldiers led by the charismatic and ruthless Lieutenant Harker. The soldiers are on a search for a rain heron, thought by many to be a myth. Harker, sensing that Ren knows more than she’s letting on, begins a campaign of terror; her coercion of Ren takes the form of strategic despoliation of the wilderness – Ren’s home. Ren is shocked by the soldier’s callousness: “Ren had seen the way she stalked around the mountain, unmoved by the trees, the air, the staggering slopes and the cellophane streams, the huge and harsh beauty of it all. For Harker, the mountain was no different to a car park, an office, the bottom of the ocean; she would use it, take what she needed, burn it down, dance gracefully in the ashes and never think of it again.”' (Introduction)
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Books Roundup
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , June 2020;
— Review of Smart Ovens for Lonely People 2020 selected work short story ; The Rain Heron 2020 single work novel ; The Spill 2020 single work novel ; Rise and Shine 2020 single work novel ; Sweatshop Women : Volume Two 2020 anthology poetry prose -
The Rain Heron : Robbie Arnott
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , July no. 168 2020; (p. 57)
— Review of The Rain Heron 2020 single work novel -
Soaring Flight of Imagination
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 13 June 2020; (p. 18)
— Review of The Rain Heron 2020 single work novel -
The Saddest of Stories, Beautifully Told : Your Guide to the Miles Franklin 2021 Shortlist
2021
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 15 July 2021; The Guardian Australia , 15 July 2021; -
y
Robbie Arnott on The Rain Heron
Marie Matteson
(interviewer),
Melbourne
:
Readings
,
2020
23470585
2020
single work
podcast
interview
'Robbie Arnott chats with Readings bookseller Marie Matteson about his second novel, The Rain Heron. This conversation was recorded online over Skype during the Covid-19 crisis.' (Production summary)
Awards
- 2021 shortlisted Voss Literary Prize
- 2021 winner The Age Book of the Year Award — Book of the Year
- 2021 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- 2021 shortlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 2021 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year