Highway Thirteen, Fiona McFarlane
Highway Thirteen, Fiona McFarlane
List: $22.99 | Sale: $16.09
Club: $11.49

Highway Thirteen
Stories

Author: Fiona McFarlane

Narrator: Emma Jones

Unabridged: 7 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/13/2024


Synopsis

"McFarlane’s skill in evoking individual inner lives and Jones’s deftness in capturing their spirit make every character distinct." —The Washington Post on The Sun Walks Down, one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Audiobooks of 2023

A gripping, enigmatic collection of linked short stories about the reverberations of a serial killer’s crimes in the lives of everyday people.

In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged for a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims’ families, but its impact travels even further: into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes.

Highway Thirteen, Fiona McFarlane’s newest collection, takes murder as its starting point, but it unfolds to encompass much more: through the investigation of the aftermath of this violence across time and place, from the killer’s childhood town to Texas, Rome, and tropical northern Australia, McFarlane presents an oblique, entrancing exploration of the way stories are told and spread, and at what cost.

What damages, big and small, do these crimes incur? How do communities make sense of such atrocities? How does the mourning of families sit alongside the public fascination with terrible crimes? And can we tell true crime stories without centering the killers? From the acclaimed author of The Sun Walks Down and The High Places comes a captivating account of loss and its extended echoes in individual lives.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

About Fiona McFarlane

Fiona McFarlane is the author of The Night Guest; The High Places, which won the International Dylan Thomas Prize; and The Sun Walks Down. Her short fiction has been published in The New Yorker and Zoetrope: All-Story. She teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on December 29, 2024

12 stories that orbit like a solar system round a centre of horror in the form of an Australian serial killer. I remember someone once summarised the movie Rosemary’s Baby by saying “you don’t get to see it” and in Highway Thirteen you don’t get anywhere near the crimes or the criminal himself. Inst......more

Goodreads review by Damo on July 30, 2024

In Highway Thirteen, Fiona McFarlane has put together a cleverly conceived collection of connected short stories to build a full 360 degree view of the crimes committed on a highway to the south of Sydney in Australia. Personally, I think this concept works best if you’re going into the collection a......more

Goodreads review by Blair on November 27, 2024

Excellent at a technical/craft level... This immediately struck me as a book you could easily teach: almost every line of every story is carefully calibrated to tell us something about its characters; McFarlane writes around the serial killer theme cleverly, deftly. But I was frequently just bored!......more

Goodreads review by nico on August 18, 2024

an excellent collection of short, eerie and unsettling stories about the effects of a serial killer in society......more

Goodreads review by Sheree on September 14, 2024

McFarlane clearly draws inspiration from the crimes of Ivan Milat, but stops short of fictionalising real crimes or rehashing old ground. The stories of Highway 13 are more unsettling and ominous than gory or violent, so they’re perfect for readers who look to avoid full-blown horror. My full review......more


Quotes

Advance Praise

“Each story . . . stands alone beautifully. Woven together, they illustrate the long-reaching, often unexpected ripple effects evil has on every life it touches.”
—Jane Harper, Booklist

“However entertaining, McFarlane’s stories continually remind readers that behind true-crime stories’ escapist pleasure exist real death and human pain. Addictively engaging, profoundly serious fiction from an underappreciated master.”
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Eerie and insightful . . . McFarlane beautifully renders the ways in which news of the crimes warps some of her cast’s relationships and causes other characters to slip into obsession. It’s a standout meditation on a community’s legacy of violence.”
Publisher’s Weekly


Awards

  • Minneapolis Star Tribune Holiday Book Recommendations
  • International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award - Nominee
  • Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year