It’s taken me quite a few days to write this post. It wasn’t a matter of deciding whether or not I liked Foal’s Bread by Gillian Mears. In many ways, there’s not much to ‘like’ – it’s bleak, tough, crushing. But it’s also brilliant. In fact, the first chapter of this stunning book will never leave me. It’s the start of  a hundred little heart-breaks for the main character, Noah Childs, and as the reader I shared every last one with her.

Foal’s Bread tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family prior to the Second World War. The backdrop is the unforgiving farming country of rural New South Wales,  a parade of country agricultural shows and the high-jumping horse circuit.

It’s not hard to see why this book has attracted so much attention (and why it won the Prime Ministers Literary Awards 2012 prize for fiction). There are dozens of glowing reviews – what can I add? Certainly no new insights but I can share what I loved most about Foal’s Bread.

First and foremost, that first chapter. It is devastating beyond belief. We meet Noah, a girl of fourteen, mustering pigs with her dad. They stop at One Tree Hill for the night where Noah first meets the Nancarrow family. Noah’s father heads for the pub, leaving Noah to look after the pigs. She does. But she also has a pain in her gut and squats in the cool water of a nearby creek where she gives birth to a baby. Her uncle’s baby. Continue reading →