ABOUT
THE BOOK

Blink Johns is more than just a gardener: he is a man who has drawn life and beauty from the earth. But his mind is closing down, retreating into images of the past and taking him away from his family.
Now, though, it’s not just his mind that is being taken away. His grandson kidnaps him from the nursing home and they head for the lunar landscape of Queenstown in western Tasmania, a place so ravaged by mining that it looks like a battlefield. He knows that if he can just get Blink there, he can give him one last chance at a dignified and creative life.
And through one apparently simple slip of the old man’s tongue, Michael Jacobson moves deftly between present and past to unfold a tragic story of friendship, war, and old age that is strangely beautiful and leads us to an unexpectedly optimistic and inspiring conclusion.