If ever there were an author who could squeeze the most meaning out of the least amount of writing, it is Australian author David Malouf. In a spare 150 pages, Malouf tells the story of an exiled Roman poet living among “barbarians” who discovers a boy alone in the wilderness. He convinces the tribe’s leader to capture the boy so that he can teach him to live as a man. The task is fraught with attacks from wives and grandmothers who believe the boy is possessed by an animal spirit that will infect their families. Infection occurs, but of what kind . . . and why?
Malouf is exceptional at bringing the natural world to life and bridging the realm we 21st century folks call dreams. He creates a place of shadows and light, with people on the edge of what is unknowable to all of us – the hereafter. An Imaginary Life will appeal to readers who usually like non-fiction adventure stories that test the limits of experience. It reads very much like the journal of a man traveling to the strangest land imaginable, put to the ultimate test of his life.