Paperbark Shoe
Books / Paperback
Books › Fiction › Historical › General
ISBN: 0312674503 / Publisher: Picador Paper, March 2011
Gin Boyle, an albino and gifted pianist who was abandoned by her stepfather, endures the hardships of rural life after a farmer, Mr. Toad, marries her, but their lives are changed forever when two Italian prisoners of war are sent by the Australian government to work on their farm.
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Winner of the 2008 AWP Award for the NovelFrom 1941 to 1947, eighteen thousand Italian prisoners of war were sent to Australia. The Italian surrender that followed the downfall of Mussolini had created a novel circumstance: prisoners who theoretically were no longer enemies. Many of these exiles were sent to work on isolated farms, unguarded.The Paperbark Shoe is the unforgettable story of Gin Boyle—an albino, a classically trained pianist, and a woman with a painful past. Disavowed by her wealthy stepfather, her unlikely savior is the farmer Mr. Toad—a little man with a taste for women's corsets. Together with their two children, they weather the hardship of rural life and the mockery of their neighbors. But with the arrival of two Italian prisoners of war, their lives are turned upside down. Thousands of miles from home, Antonio and John find themselves on Mr. and Mrs. Toad's farm, exiles in the company of exiles. The Paperbark Shoe is a remarkable novel about the far-reaching repercussions of war, the subtle violence of displacement, and what it means to live as a captive—in enemy country, and in one's own skin.
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