Promontory

by Peter Fitzpatrick

Wilson's Promontory, the southernmost tip of the Australian mainland, looked like the perfect place for a bushwalk. But for the strange assortment of men and women who ventured into its wild beauties that day in the summer of 1924, it all went horribly wrong. They all had their own reasons for being there. For some it was to be a testing of mind and body, for others an opportunity for romance, or at least a bit of uncomplicated sex under canvas. But love and lust were not the only passions they brought to the Promontory. Two of them would die, and all of them would be changed by the events of that week. Richard Carney, through whose eyes the story is told, sets out to find the source of the evil in this Garden; in the course of his journey, there are other things to be learned as well, about love and death, promontories, other people and himself.

Promontory is many things - a love story, a murder mystery, a metaphysical novel about the spirit of place. For its readers, as for the people who took the trail, it is an unpredictable, unforgettable journey.

282 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

(b 1944) Mayo Street is Peter Fitzpatrick’s third novel. Its predecessors, Death in the BackPocket (with Barbara Wenzel) and Promontory, set respectively in an AFL football club and on a bushwalk in the 1920s, are similarly crime-novels-with-a-twist; all three share a keen eye for the complexities – and the humour – of human behaviour.

Peter’s writing spans a number of genres: in feature film, his credits include screenplays for Hotel Sorrento (for which he won an AFI Award) and Brilliant Lies; as a biographer, he has published two dual biographies, Pioneer Players: the lives of Louis and Hilda Esson, and The Two Frank Thrings (for which he won the National Biography Award in 2013); and in musical theatre, three of his shows have been professionally staged – flowerchildren: the Mamas and Papas Story, Life’s a Circus and CrossXroads (with composer Anthony Costanzo). Another musical, Castro’s Children (for which Peter has written book and lyrics in collaboration with composer Simon Stone) will have its premiere in 2024.

Peter Fitzpatrick is Honorary Professor of Performing Arts at Monash University, where he held a Personal Chair until 2007. In a previous life, Peter taught English and Drama at Monash University, where he was Foundation Head and Professor of Performing Arts. He directed some thirty productions during that period, at Monash and beyond, and published three books and many articles in the field of twentieth-century Australian theatre.

Peter lives in Melbourne (and sometimes in Port Douglas) with his wife, Gabrielle Baldwin.