The Road Back

By: Di Morrissey

Narrated by: David Tredinnick

From the mountains to the valleys, from big cities to tiny towns, to the outback and our islands, Di Morrissey knows this country. She's been there. In The Road Back, Di weaves a tale of reconnection and starting over. Journalist Chris Baxter is at a crossroads. Returning with his teenage daughter to his mother's house in the beautiful township of Neverend, Chris hopes to pick up the pieces after his life takes an unexpected turn. Sometimes taking the road back is the start of a journey forward.©2014 Lady Byron Pty Ltd (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

"Di Morrissey writes long juicy page turners; flowing sensational sagas." ( The Age)

The narrator was extremely difficult to listen to!

The story was pretty slow and predictable but nowhere near as slow as the narration. Wasted my money on this one :(

great read

loved every second of it. found nyself impatient to finish work so i could listen to my book on the way home. it hss become a yreat.

Family life is better in small Australian towns

The small town of Neverend, on the Australian eastern seaboard, is where people can relate honestly and safely to each other, have time to value relationships and the environment. It is where school students have the advantage of community life and families are more likely to have fewer economic (and therefore relationship) pressures than those in the more expensive cities. Where there is history and continuity.

Life events propel journalist Chris Baxter back to Neverend where he confronts his role as father to his teenage daughter, is offered wisdom from his mother (retired from teaching there for 40 years and is thus an integral part of the community) and, now unemployed, needs to recreate his role in society. In turn, he becomes a catalyst for his mother to revisit key life events as they dove-tail into the present where their repercussions still lie dormant.

As a background rumble, Neverend is juxtaposed against the violent politics of Indonesia of the 1960s and their implications for the contemporary relationship between Australia and this crucially important neighbor.

Rich pickings here.

Morrissey's invariably worthy themes are delivered with craft and care in her many novels. In The Road Back there is an all pervading feeling that she really wants people to accept her major themes, which she clearly believes are important for the future well-being of the places and people she cares about. As a result she over repeats and reiterates her central ideas. This amounts to something like a lack of confidence which is even reflected in the structure: rather than presenting ideas that will thread through the book and hold the reader: the beginning is slow and earnest and there is little to engage.

But Morrissey’s well deserved reputation will entice the reader to persevere and this will be rewarded.

The experienced narrator, David Tredinnick, failed to lift the slow beginning where his reading was occasionally breathy and with unexpected pauses. He succeeded in creating satisfying voices without excessive tone change but his Australian accents bordered on the patronising. Nevertheless he was a sympathetic reader.

Brilliant listen !

What a great book! I really enjoyed this listen. In fact I kept looking at how long to go as I didn't want it to end. Another great book by this author and brilliant narration. THANKYOU