This visionary novel, set in Australia, tells a story through the eyes of twelve-year-old Morton Flack. He watches his family in their isolation and hatred until, one day, an evangelist, Henry Warburton, arrives and, from then on, strange visitors from the Otherworld begin to encroach on their lives. Tim Winton won the 1981 Australian/Vogel Award for his first novel An Open Swimmer and the 1985 Miles Franklin Award for his second book Shallows.