He had never got within measurable distance of what he called life, at all…deep down in him, he knew, was an enormous residue of vitality…It was like a buried treasure, jealously kept for the event of his one day catching up with life: not the bare scramble for a living that here went by that name, but Life with a capital L.
Richard Mahony is a restless man. Ballarat, England, Melbourne, Europe, the bush: elsewhere is always better. Searching for a place, a meaning, a life, and always loyally supported by his wife Mary, he journeys from shopkeeping to medicine, from poverty to wealth, from order to chaos. With its wisdom, intelligence and effortless narrative power, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a masterpiece.
