description: William Badger, a boy growing up in post-war Australia, is taken by his beautiful and alarmingly inattentive mother for what she says is to be a lovely seaside holiday. She brings him to a working-class boardinghouse by the sea, and (as he has feared she will) she abandons him there, promising to return as soon as she can. Days pass. The reader is certain — as certain as the boy is, though he denies it to himself and the other boarders — that she will never come back.The terror doesn't last long, and William is reunited with his mother and father, but every small detail of the awful holiday stays with William, echoing and re-echoing in a multitude of ways right into adulthood.Nothing in Longleg occurs just once. As in a fairy tale, everything happens several times, each time in a different way; each time the magic formula is invoked, the result is different. Several events and images reappear over and over like musical phrases, inverted or abridged or varied.
language: English
title: Longleg
titlecomplete: Longleg
ratings_count: 28
awards: awardedAt: 662716800000
name: National Book Council Banjo Award
category: Fiction
publisher: Angus & Robertson