https://newcastleweekly.com.au/win-mark-brandis-the-others/WIN! Mark Brandi’s ‘The Others’
Bestselling author Mark Brandi. Photo: Julian Dolman
Newcastle readers might have a reason to curl up with a good book this weekend, after bestselling author Mark Brandi released a new novel The Others last month.
On the back of his success with Wimmera and The Rip, it explores the darkness in the world through the eyes of a child.
After Jacob’s father gives him a diary for his eleventh birthday, he begins writing about things that happen on the family farm.
He writes about the sheep, the crop, the fox and the dam.
Although he knows some things should not be written down and some things should not be remembered, Jacob soon learns there’s more that his father is keeping from him.
He wonders who his father is protecting him from, and how far he’ll go to keep the world at bay.
All too soon, Jacob will learn that, sometimes, people do the most terrible things.
The Others is Brandi’s third novel, the second to take its roots from a short story he wrote in 2016.
While it is largely fictional, it is based on real events from his childhood.
Brandi recalls when he was ten years old and his father brought home a young fox he’d caught in a trap on the farm. He watched carefully as his father dressed the wound on its leg, then fashioned an enclosure for it in their backyard.
Brandi was astonished by its presence, but confused by his father’s tender care for an animal he’d seemingly tried to kill. The complexity of that experience left an indelible mark, becoming the inspiration for the two main characters in this novel.
The characters in The Others are also inspired by the violent and turbulent relationship Brandi’s father had with his father, and questions whether our early environment invariably shapes us as adults.
Brandi’s bestselling novel, Wimmera, won the British Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger and was named Best Debut at the 2018 Australian Indie Book Awards.
It was also shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year.
His second novel, The Rip, was published to critical acclaim by Hachette Australia in March 2019.
Brandi’s shorter work has appeared in The Guardian, The Age, The Big Issue, and in journals both in Australia and overseas.
Brandi graduated with a criminal justice degree and worked extensively in the justice system, before becoming a writer. Originally from Italy, he grew up in rural Victoria.
ENTER TO WIN
Newcastle Weekly has three copies of The Others to give away.
To enter, email
competitions@newcastleweekly.com.au with ‘The Others’ in the subject field. Tell us your name, full contact details (including best delivery address and mobile) and why you want this prize. Entries close at 9am on Thursday 15 July 2021 and winners drawn same day. One entry per person. Entrants must be aged 18+.
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