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Title: The Riders by Tim Winton, Stanley McGeagh ISBN: 1-86340-607-7 Publisher: Bolinda Pub Inc Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 Format: Audio Cassette List Price(USD): $69.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.85 (40 reviews)

Rating: 2
Summary: What happened to "The Riders"?
Comment: Did I miss the point or did anyone notice that the major thread running throughout this book is child abuse. Suffice it to say that it wasn't intentional but when Scully's daughter shows up alone at Shannon airport traumatized and speechless, unable to explain the whereabouts of her mother, he begins the trek of a lifetime to find her. The book goes on and on as he drags Billie from country to country and bar to bar unable to face the truth, that his wife has left him.

Seven-year-old Billie, is mauled by a dog, her face becomes infected and scared due to improper care. Scully brings her to squalid bars while he gets drunk day after day where she listens to disgusting language. In Amsterdam she is left to her own demise, as her father gets drunk to drown his sorrow. Somewhere around this point Scully is hit over the head and carted off to jail on Christmas Day.

I stuck with this book because the author actually made Scully out to be a devoted dad and a likable character, the beginning of the book was exceptional and I was curious about the ending. It's just too bad he didn't follow through. I do wish there was more tie in to "The Riders", a ghostly group, mysteriously introduced in the beginning but that was also anticlimactic, and given no more than a few pages.

The time came when I felt like enough is enough it's time to take it like a man Scully, and take care of your child. I got to the point where I didn't even care what happened to his wife Jennifer. I find it hard to believe this book was up for the Booker prize. I found it easy to skip whole paragraphs in the middle as Scully's paranoia ran rampart and repetitive. I kept thinking am I missing the point here but every time I doubted my reading savvy I was put off by the underlying child abuse. Kelsana 3/19/01

Rating: 5
Summary: The unknowability of the human heart
Comment: Tim Winton's "The Riders", a Booker Prize nominee, is one of the most impressive novels I have read all year. It is a brilliantly crafted and expertly executed literary achievement by one of Australia's most promising modern young writers. Preparing to start a new life with his wife Jennifer and young daughter Billie in Ireland, Scully's life is blown apart when he goes to the airport to meet his family but finds only Billie and no message from his missing wife. With Billie in tow, he travels to Greece, France and the Netherlands in search of Jennifer but unbeknown to himself begins a journey of self discovery that will alter the course of his life in ways he never envisaged. The Scully you meet in the first few chapters, giddy with happiness and anticipation as he toils to make habitable a ramshackle old place he has bought to begin a new life with his family, is so "up" and vibrant a life force, you feel a palpable sense of hurt watching his slide downhill. But redemption awaits around the corner. While Jennifer, a shadowy figure, remains an enigma, her disappearance forces Scully to come to terms with feelings of betrayal and to recognise that it is perhaps impossible to truly know another human being. The unknowability of the human heart, arguably the novel's central theme, is powerfully captured in the recurring image of riders on white horses, all spendiferously dressed, but still and silent and oblivious to all as they line up for parade in the night. The gradual role reversal we witness in the adult-child relationship between Scully and Billie only deepens the sense of pathos evoked by new circumstances as they unfold. Billie, quiet and uncommunicative, but who proves ultimately to be the quicker learner of life's lessons, ends up taking charge. She quite literally controls the purse strings by the end of the story. Winton's language is colourful and he uses imagery to dazzling effect. His minor characters (eg, Irma, Alex and Pete) are also memorable. They remain sharply etched in our minds long after they have been written out of the plot. Irma, arguably Scully's saviour, may be a damaged soul but she possesses the essence of humanity absent from the sophisticated but calculating Jennifer. "The Riders" is such a rare and haunting beauty of a novel I can only recommend other readers to take their time enjoying it. Richly deserving of its Booker Prize award nomination. Go get it !

Rating: 4
Summary: Confusing conclusion
Comment: I was gripped by this book. Tim Winton's prose is electric. But the plot proliferates into something unbelievable. Yet I felt frustration, not at the author, but with myself for not being able to clearly see the truth. Perhaps like the protagonist I was searching for the reality of the story. It posed more questions and answered few. I came away feeling a bit like I'd been served a delicious appetizer, wine, vegetables, but no entree. And I'm still hungry.