Winter of Innocence (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780648854692)

...Strange how the influences of dead and forgotten relations, friends and enemies, bear on those now living; making those lives seem just as impossibly out of control as had once seemed their lives to those now dead and unremembered; as though there is only one life instead of many; as though one's life is a part of all those other lives now over, those other lives still to come; yet as though, in the end, despite doubt and terror and weakness and failure, there might be a fragment of meaning after all. - Anthony Fielding

Harry O'Brien's life is at melting point. As tumultuous destructive events collide and swirl to culminate in a cacophony of deep emotional self-evaluation, a vivid visual recreation of 1960's through to 1980's Sydney, unveils the complex life of a working-class Australian man and his tangled inner circle. They all strive to survive loss and abuse through a maelstrom of addictions, whilst being compelled by the intense desire to find unconditional love. Can Harry discover meaning to his life's journey? Are the answers found in his many rapacious sexual conquests and his unwavering commitment to pursuing the driving questions that haunt him? Or will the jagged shards of his past and those of his cohort bind them to remain unenlightened in their winter of innocence?