Zusatztext Psychologically taut and steeped in the power of secrets among friends! A Common Loss is brimming with deft writing! revelation! and insight. Dominic Smith! award-winning author of Bright and Distant Shores Informationen zum Autor Kirsten Tranter grew up in Sydney and studied English and Fine Arts at the University of Sydney. She lived in New York between 1998 and 2006, where she completed a PhD in English on Renaissance poetry at Rutgers University. She now lives in Sydney with her husband and son. Visit KirstenTranter.com. Klappentext "Washington Square Press fiction original trade"--T.p. verso. Leseprobe 1 The surprising weight of the animal is the thing that strikes me most. My shoulders, neck, arms, all strain with the effort of trying to lift it even an inch or two off the road, enough to get any traction. I exhale, loosen my hold, and try again, but it won't budge. Patches of its fur are bright in the surrounding darkness, as though spotlit, as though the car headlights are still on and bearing down on it, but that can't be right. A sense of panic edges in as I contemplate the impossibility of the task. It is too heavy. But if we leave it here, someone else will crash into it. We have to move it. This might be a conversation that actually happens with one of the others, or an exchange of reason and reluctance inside my own head. Another set of hands takes the deer, helping me, and suddenly it feels lighter by a tremendous degree. We lift it together, with effort, but nothing like the impossible, body-breaking strain of before. I feel a surge of gratitude and relief. Its neck hangs down at a lifeless angle, pale and spotted. We carry it off the road, dragging it up the low embankment and a few feet farther than we probably need to, just to the line of trees, and let it down slowly: haunch, torso, shoulder, curve of neck, head, and the legs and hooves, while a scattering of leaves and pine needles cushions it against the ground. The other hands brush against each other as though rinsing it off. They're Dylan's, of course, olive-skinned and finely shaped, and I find myself wondering at the strength contained in his slim body, the strength that helped me lift the deer, which is still strangely luminescent. I look up to thank him, and that's when I notice the blood on his handshis own or the deer's, I can't be sureand the trickle of it on his face from his temple to his jawline, and meet his expectant gaze. I'm aware of the crunch of feet on dry leavesa heavy tread, uneven, stumblingand then the sound of the car horn wakes me and I realize it's the blare of the alarm clock, and I open my eyes to find my room silent, the clock showing an hour or two earlier than I need to be awake. I think the others struggled with dreams about the accident, too. Every night for the first week afterward, several times I'd be hurled awake by the sensation of the car turning over and crashing to a stop: the last second or two that I couldn't consciously recall when I was awake. All the rest I remembered in maddeningly complete detail: the pale flash of the deer's body and face on the dark, empty road, my relief that Cameron was braking, not swerving, as the driving instructors had always said to do; panic as Cameron's instinct to avoid the animal kicked in and the car began to turn, his hands on the wheel trying to correct; and then the long moment when the car left the road, traveling fast, launched into the air, and rolledonce, twice. It landed upside down. That's the part I don't remember, the landing, but I do remember having to climb through from the backseat and out the open front passenger window with a sense of it being strange to do so with everything pointing wrong way up. Shock does that, activates some part of the brain that records every minute detail of experience and sensation, a...

8220;Psychologically taut and steeped in the power of secrets among friends, A Common Loss is brimming with deft writing, revelation, and insight.” —Dominic Smith, award-winning author of Bright and Distant Shores

Autorentext

Kirsten Tranter grew up in Sydney and studied English and Fine Arts at the University of Sydney. She lived in New York between 1998 and 2006, where she completed a PhD in English on Renaissance poetry at Rutgers University. She now lives in Sydney with her husband and son. Visit KirstenTranter.com.

Klappentext

A riveting new novel about a group of friends whose longtime tensions and rivalries come to a head after one of them dies suddenly.

Zusammenfassung
From the critically acclaimed author of The Legacy comes a riveting new novel about a group of friends whose longtime tensions and rivalries are suddenly exposed after one of them dies suddenly.

A WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS P APERBACK ORIGINAL THEY WERE ORIGINALLY FIVE.

Elliot. Brian. Tallis. Cameron. And Dylan—charismatic Dylan—the mediator, the man each one turned to in a time of crisis. Five close friends, bonded in college, still coming together for their annual trip to Las Vegas. This year they are four. Four friends, sharing a common loss: Dylan’s tragic death. A common loss that, upon their arrival in Vegas, will bring with it a common threat: one that will make them question who their departed friend really was, and whether he was ever worthy of their grief.

“Brimming with blackmail and deception” and “laced with simmering emotional tension” (Australian Bookseller & Publisher), A Common Loss is a hypnotic tale from an exciting new voice in literary fiction.

Leseprobe
1

The surprising weight of the animal is the thing that strikes me most. My shoulders, neck, arms, all strain with the effort of trying to lift it even an inch or two off the road, enough to get any traction. I exhale, loosen my hold, and try again, but it won’t budge. Patches of its fur are bright in the surrounding darkness, as though spotlit, as though the car headlights are still on and bearing down on it, but that can’t be right. A sense of panic edges in as I contemplate the impossibility of the task. It is too heavy. But if we leave it here, someone else will crash into it. We have to move it. This might be a conversation that actually happens with one of the others, or an exchange of reason and reluctance inside my own head.

Another set of hands takes the deer, helping me, and suddenly it feels lighter by a tremendous degree. We lift it together, with effort, but nothing like the impossible, body-breaking strain of before. I feel a surge of gratitude and relief. Its neck hangs down at a lifeless angle, pale and spotted. We carry it off the road, dragging it up the low embankment and a few feet farther than we probably need to, just to the line of trees, and let it down slowly: haunch, torso, shoulder, curve of neck, head, and the legs and hooves, while a scattering of leaves and pine needles cushions it against the ground. The other hands brush against each other as though rinsing it off. They’re Dylan’s, of course, olive-skinned and finely shaped, and I find myself wondering at the strength contained in his slim body, the strength that helped me lift the deer, which is still strangely luminescent. I look up to thank him, and that’s when I notice the blood on his hands—his own or the deer’s, I can’t be sure—and the trickle of it on his face from his temple to his jawline, and meet his expectant gaze.

I’m aware of the crunch of feet on dry leaves—a heavy tread, uneven, stumbling—and then the sound of the car horn wakes me and I realize it’s the blare of the alarm clock, and I open my eyes to find my room silent, the clock showing an hour or two earlier than I need to be awake.

I think the others struggled with dreams about the accident, too. Every night for the…