“Will it dissolve it? The rock I’ve swallowed?” I ask. It is an extremely pressing question. The biggest question. Does Learned want it back?
The fluid that now enters me stuns to silence the debate I’m having with myself.
“I’ve stopped arguing,” I tell the air about my room, the new one. The one to do with hope of some sort.
Learned Man Returns to His Lake
SOME MONTHS AFTER the death of Shelby Apple, the tribes whose traditional lands abutted Lake Learned returned their ancient hero, Learned Man, to his country in a wooden casket. The joy was visible in the faces of the elders.
A keen wind ran across Lake Learned that day. Peter Jorgensen, who was invited, thought that in Learned Man’s day it would have shivered the surface of the water. It rustled the saltbush in a way that almost imitated the old lake as Jorgensen knew it had once been. He told the press that it was a day of immense history, but also a beginning.
“Learned Man,” he said, “has not yet finished speaking to us all.”
More from the Author
The Power Game
The Unmourned
The Soldier's Curse
Crimes of the Father
Napoleon's Last Island
Shame and the Captives
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THOMAS KENEALLY began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty-seven novels since, most recently Crimes of the Father, Napoleon’s Last Island, Shame and the Captives, and the New York Times bestselling The Daughters of Mars. His novels include Schindler’s List, which won the Booker Prize in 1982; The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith; Gossip from the Forest; and Confederates, all of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney, Australia.
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www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Thomas-Keneally
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ALSO BY THOMAS KENEALLY
FICTION
The Place at Whitton
The Fear
Bring Larks and Heroes
Three Cheers for the Paraclete
The Survivor
A Dutiful Daughter
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Blood Red, Sister Rose
Gossip from the Forest
Season in Purgatory
A Victim of the Aurora
Passenger
Confederates
The Cut-rate Kingdom
Schindler’s Ark
A Family Madness
The Playmaker
Towards Asmara
By the Line
Flying Hero Class
Woman of the Inner Sea
Jacko
A River Town
Bettany’s Book
An Angel in Australia
The Tyrant’s Novel
The Widow and Her Hero
The People’s Train
The Daughters of Mars
Shame and the Captives
Napoleon’s Last Island
Crimes of the Father
NONFICTION
Outback
The Place Where Souls Are Born
Now and in Time to Be: Ireland and the Irish
Memoirs from a Young Republic
Homebush Boy: A Memoir
The Great Shame
American Scoundrel
Lincoln
The Commonwealth of Thieves
Searching for Schindler
Three Famines
Australians (vols. I, II, and III)
A Country Too Far (ed. with Rosie Scott)
Australians: A Short History
FOR CHILDREN
Ned Kelly and the City of Bees
Roos in Shoes
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 978-1-9821-2103-7
ISBN 978-1-9821-2105-1 (ebook)
The Book of Science and Antiquities Page 26
