The story focuses on a retired engineer who has had a once-thriving life as an academic and expert, and has now moved into a retirement village. Widowed and estranged from his adult children, he lives in miserable isolation. When a neighbour intervenes he is forced to confront his loneliness.The Judges described Extinctions as:
a meditation on survival: on what people carry, on how they cope, and on why they might, after so much putting their head in the sand, come to the decision to engage, and even change.I have not read this book, so cannot comment on its merits directly. The shortlist from which this novel was chosen as the winner was made up of first-time nominees:
- Emily Maguire - An Isolated Incident
- Mark O'Flynn - Last Days of Ava Langdon
- Ryan O'Neill - Their Brilliant Careers
- Philip Salom - Waiting
Of these, I have only read Emily Maguire's novel and really enjoyed it.