Cherrywood

From multi-award-winning author Jock Serong comes Cherrywood, an imaginative, darkly playful and deeply meaningful delight, a novel about legacy, community, wonder, love and reinvention.


‘One rainy Friday evening in the winter of 1993, a taxi swept through the streets of East Melbourne, on its way from the city to Richmond. That year was one of the few remaining when a great deal was known of the world but not yet so much that the world had become over-known. Small gaps remained …’

Edinburgh, 1916: A rich Scottish industrialist, Thomas Wrenfether, impulsively embarks on a mad scheme to build a paddlesteamer out of dubiously sourced European cherrywood on the other side of the world, in booming Melbourne, Australia. But nothing goes according to plan.

Melbourne, 1993: Martha is a clever, lonely and frustrated lawyer. One night, on impulse, she stops at a strange pub in Fitzroy, The Cherrywood, for a bottle of wine. The mysterious building and its inhabitants make an indelible impression, and she slowly begins to deduce odd truths about the pub.

From multi-award-winning author Jock Serong comes a darkly delicious, playful and rich novel about legacy, community, wonder, love and reinvention – Cherrywood is haunting, magical and a true original.

‘A wildly imaginative, intricately woven tale of beauty, love and loss. Serong is an exceptionally gifted writer, and Cherrywood is his best book yet’ Mark Brandi

‘Beneath its captivating intricacy lies an exploration of grief, love and the haunting proximity of the past … A work of exuberance, rare charm and, above all, heart’ Lucy Treloar

‘What an adventure. This beautiful novel of ambition and grief has me feeling ghosts at every step’ Tim Rogers

Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Imprint: HarperCollins AU
Publication date: 04/09/2024