Shell

"A luminous look at a city at a time of change, a time when the building of the Sydney Opera House was a reach for greatness." --The New York Times In this spellbinding and poignant historical novel--perfect for fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Flamethrowers--a Swedish glassmaker and a fiercely independent Australian journalist are thrown together amidst the turmoil of the 1960s and the dawning of a new modern era. 1965: As the United States becomes further embroiled in the Vietnam War, the ripple effects are far-reaching--even to the other side of the world. In Australia, a national military draft has been announced and Pearl Keogh, a headstrong and ambitious newspaper reporter, has put her job in jeopardy to become involved in the anti-war movement. Desperate to locate her two runaway brothers before they´re called to serve, Pearl is also hiding a secret shame--the guilt she feels for not doing more for her younger siblings after their mother´s untimely death. Newly arrived from Sweden, Axel Lindquist is set to work as a sculptor on the besieged Sydney Opera House. After a childhood in Europe, where the shadow of WWII loomed large, he seeks to reinvent himself in this utterly foreign landscape, and finds artistic inspiration--and salvation--in the monument to modernity that is being constructed on Sydney´s Harbor. But as the nation hurtles towards yet another war, Jørn Utzon, the Opera House´s controversial architect, is nowhere to be found--and Axel fears that the past he has tried to outrun may be catching up with him. As the seas of change swirl around them, Pearl and Axel´s lives orbit each other and collide in this sweeping novel of art and culture, love and destiny.