Original Blog Post: eARC Review: As Far as You Can Go by Lesley GlaisterLesley Glaister pushes both her main characters and the reader As Far As You Can Go in her gripping novel on the unexpected finds in the Australian outback. From the first chapter to the last, there's that niggling feeling at the back of the neck that someone, somehow, is a master puppeteer controlling everything. Who it is may be obvious, but why and how are the questions that make you want to get to the very end of the story. Is everything satisfactorily answered by then? I think that question is better left to you reading this book yourself!Cassie is unsure of Graham, the king of uncommitted, and needs to prove to herself and him that they can have a decent go on their relationship. She answers an extremely vague ad for a couple willing to move to Australia for a year in the hopes that having him away from distractions would get him to buckle down and be a responsible adult. Graham, on the other hand, is making his irresponsibility a rebellion of sorts. He doesn't want to do as he is told, doesn't want to carry his weight, so he simply falls back on being useless and lets other people like Cassie and his best friend Jas support him. He's even estranged himself from his parents in an effort not to be adult. Will his childish psyche survive the rigors of the outback or make him crack?While I've never been to Australia, I've experienced it through books and stories shared by friends and family. The culture is different yet familiar at the same time as I've grown up to tales of characters like the bunyip, read some of the aboriginal stories, and know enough to realize that the bush is far friendlier than the dreaded outback. Yet people live, even thrive in those wild, empty, vast lands where the closest neighbor could be several hundred kilometers away! It's mind blowing for the rest of the world yet normal for people who live Down Under. This story could well be a movie in the mind, with descriptions so vivid you can almost taste the blood-red dust in your mouth and feel the relentless sun pulling out rivulets of sweat from your body. Heat so strong is could desiccate you (I wonder if the story of the cows and the water tank has some basis in truth?) in a landscape so unusual and colors so vivid that paintings of it would leave you asking if the artist exaggerated it somehow. The trio that meet Cassie and Graham in Australia are a motley crew, and you wouldn't truly know who manipulates who, although my suspicions did pan out in the end. And for a book with every other chapter talking about sex, somehow it manages to stay in the background and not play a starring role. It's just the people themselves and their interaction in a remote area which provides all the focus. Lesley Glaister clearly shows her talent as a playwright in As Far As You Can Go, with her style of writing quickly introducing elements so crisp and clear they can just about be heard, smelt, and even felt. The unending sheen of sweat, stifling heat, and sheer feeling of desperation practically rip off the pages. Beautiful. Note: Copy provided by publisher through NetGalley for an honest review.
Cassie and Graham are both at dead end jobs and their relationship isn’t going anywhere. Graham is a painter but for the last year or so he’s done nothing. Cassie answers an advert for housekeeper/companions (a couple) in a rural location. When Cassie meets with the advertiser her tells her that he owns a sheep ranch in the outback of Western Australia. The couple he is looking for must be self-sufficient and looking for an adventure. They will be expected to cook, clean, garden and do personal care duty.Cassie feels it’s the perfect opportunity for her and Graham to get away from everything that’s wrong with their relationship and start anew. There is one proviso, they won’t be paid if they stay for less than one year. Cassie figures that the year away will bring them closer together and give Graham the chance to concentrate on his painting.When they arrive at the Woolagong Station, after twenty-three hours of travel, Cassie finds out that everything isn’t what Larry said it was. The station is on the edge of the desert, it’s run down without a phone, radio or television or internet. There’s no running water or bathroom. The Station itself looks as if it hasn’t been active in years. Their nearest neighbor (Fred) is a quirky sort and his place is forty miles away. Larry’s wife Mara lives in a room in a shed where he keeps her sedated most of the time. Larry tells Cassie that his wife can be violent and that as a Doctor he prescribes her medication to keep her docile. The main house where Larry lives is off limits to Cassie and Gray except for the kitchen where cooking is done on an old style stove. The Station is so isolated that they have nowhere to go when they’re not working. The hot Australian sun can burn you in a short time if you are caught out in it without water and sunscreen. When cleaning under the sink, Cassie finds a set of three keys. She figures that they have to be for the ‘private side’ of the Station. Larry goes off with Fred on a shopping expedition, leaving Cassie to care for Mara. Cassie confuses Mara’s medication and Mara who is less befuddled than normal tells her stories that convince her to use the keys she found. Opening up the door to Larry’s study she finds rooms with an internet connection and closed circuit TV. Larry has been watching (and taping) Cassie and Gray. She also finds tapes of the previous couple who stayed at the Station. Most confusing she finds a bathroom with a shower/tub and toilet. What is Larry’s end game? The story is a cross between Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock. There are all the twists and turns of a great thriller, good read.Zeb Kantrowitz zworstblog.blogspot.com
What do You think about As Far As You Can Go (2005)?
Cassie is a woman of a certain age and she wants her artist boyfriend Graham to settle down and have a family with her. Graham has a bit of a roving eye and commitment issues so when Cassie sees a job working in the Outback of Australia for a year it seems like the perfect solution. Hired as a housekeeper and handyman to a doctor and his invalid wife they soon start to see that all is not as they had expected. Living conditions are very primitive and the Spring heat is already much more than either of them had anticipated but it is the household set up that gets stranger by the day. This is a really good psychological thriller that keeps you turning the page. The characters are vividly described and genuinely quite disturbing. I haven't enjoyed a book so much for ages! I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
—Net
Author Lesley Glaister has presented her readers with an eerily entertaining tale about a couple trying to salvage their relationship with distance in "As Far as You Can Go." Distance that is put as farbetween them and the life they knew in England in exchange for a year in the Australian Outback.Cassie wants commitment from Graham, but he seems unable to grow up. She secretly makes a work arrangement for them that requires they spend a year as employees at Woolagong, a once active sheep station that now is home to Larry, researcher, his reclusive off-balanced wife Mara and an occasional visitor named Fred. Cassie and Graham have no idea what - or who - awaits them in the dusty, oddly beautiful Outback.Some of the novel's vocabulary may be new to U.S. readers, but they will quickly learn the new terms for outhouse, foods and such. The new phrases add to the sense of isolation of the novel's setting, which is richly described and detailed.Glaister does an excellent job creating characters that must find their way in their strange surroundings or suffer its consequences. From the beginning, there are undertones of mystery, which only deepen as the characters' strengths and weaknesses are exposed. Take Mara, for example, who shocks the transplanted Londoners with her nudity and unlaced boots.To tell more about the story line would spoil it for readers. Just know that this is a book that intrigues readers at every turn of the page.ARC provided by NetGalley
—Susan Obryan
A good novel with sex, mystery and suspense with background of Australia outback. Classie ses a newspaper ad for couple to spend year near Australia's desert. Graham and she accepts the offer. Arriving there they find nothing as promised There is no electricity or phone. sheds for buildings,an out house. Meeting Mara, Larry's wife is shocked. Fred delivers supplies periodically. Before Cassie feels something is wrong.She. needs to find out what is in order to return to home.Full Disclosure: I received a free copy from Open Road Integrated Media through Netgalley for an honest review. I wished to thank them for the opportunity to read and review this book. The opinions are my own.
—Betty
