Dusk

“This is a propulsive novel of survival and betrayal, enriched by arresting depictions of nature.”
—The Economist

“[A] meditative novel . . . As [the twins] traverse a ghostly landscape of snow, mist, and fossils, they confront questions of morality and belonging.”
—New Yorker

“Arresting . . . Readers will be utterly captivated by this atmospheric tale of danger and survival.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Arnott neatly balances the story of the hunt with excursions into the Renshaws’ troubled past . . . But even as he propels the novel’s plot forward, Arnott’s evocative prose keeps the ruggedly beautiful ‘freeing, lung-emptying openness’ of the Tasmanian highlands—an environment that poses an ever-shifting set of fearsome obstacles to Iris and Floyd—in the foreground.”
—Harvey Freedenberg, BookPage

“This is a great summer read—plunging you into both an atmospheric location and a heart-pounding story.”
—Melanie Fleishman, Center for Fiction

“Following twins Iris and Floyd through the Tasmanian highlands, on a mission to hunt the man-killing puma Dusk, this book knocked the wind right out of me, like a guttural punch to the stomach. Robbie Arnott transforms the world through his spell-binding writing, combining elements of magical realism into this eco-western fiction, making the environment feel like the unnamed main character. Dusk is devastating and brutal; unforgiving like nature.”
—Amy McInnes, BookPeople

“A red-in-tooth-and-claw saga . . . While time and place are left vague, everything else is drawn vividly, not least the stunning, monumental landscape: a character in itself, it seems to nod to past crimes and extinctions, eerily strewn as it is with bones . . . An absorbing adventure nonetheless.”
—Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail

“This is nature writing at its finest.”
—Sam Franzini, Our Culture

“Stories about escaped big cats—especially panthers—have roamed the outlands of the Australian settler-colonial imagination for more than a century . . . In Dusk, Robbie Arnott takes these myths and reimagines them with fascinating results . . . Much of the magic of Dusk grows out of the writing. As anybody who has read any of his previous novels will know, Arnott has an astonishing facility with language, and his prose imbues the Tasmanian wilderness with an extraordinary, immanent beauty . . . Starkly beautiful and deeply felt.”
—James Bradley, The Guardian

“Arnott’s prose is expansive and beautifully rendered, bringing the harshness and beauty of the landscape to life, both of which are given an almost dreamlike heightening by the mystery of the time and setting. A lush, immersive read.”
—Catherine Jarvie, Marie Claire (UK)

“Dusk is a sublime novel of loss and redemption, fight and surrender, that left me in absolute awe. Robbie Arnott’s prose is incandescent, his storytelling mythic and filled with a wisdom that extends beyond the page. With Dusk, he asserts himself as one of Australia’s finest literary writers.”
—Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites