Moral ambiguity was the eddying undercurrent of ML Stedman’s immensely popular 2012 debut, The Light Between Oceans, about a couple who discover a baby on the shores of their remote island home off the coast of Western Australia. It’s been a long time since that novel, which spurred an international bidding war and sparked a lacklustre film adaptation. In her second work, A Far-flung Life, Stedman remains just as preoccupied by what governs our understanding of right and wrong, as well as how we define our sense of family and identity.
A Far-flung Life, also set in WA, begins in 1958 and follows several generations of the MacBride family on their million-acre sheep ranch, Meredith Downs. Here, small decisions have vast consequences: when the patriarch, Phil, swerves to avoid a kangaroo while driving home from the market, he and his eldest son, Warren, are killed. Matt, the youngest son, only just survives. Lorna, suddenly a widow, takes over the reins of the ranch, now the sole parent not only of Matt, whose amnesic head injury forces him to redefine who he is and the life he had once hoped for, but also of her “fiery, mercurial” daughter, Rosie.
