In the summer of 1944 returning soldiers Canning Christie and his father Michael arrive in South Australia from the desert sands of North Africa.
Canning carries the trauma of war and a fractured memory of a terrible event, while charismatic Michael resumes his womanising ways, intent on concealing his own secret wound.
Inexplicably drawn to a vineyard on their land, Canning dreams of producing his own wine. And a chance meeting with Grace Huntley, daughter of the local landowner, offers him hope for that future.
But dormant memories keep rising up: his childhood with his mother, the years traversing the interior with his father and his time at the front.
Soon, viniculture becomes an obsession - one he suspects lies in a hazy recollection of a night in battle. To move forward Canning must reconcile the past, even if that means working with Italian POWs and accepting help from an immigrant German . . .
. . . And ultimately taking a stand against his own father, whose increasingly reckless behaviour is threatening to destroy their new life.
'Unputdownable . epitomising the great Australian novel.' Anita Heiss on Nicole's previous novel The Last Station