The Riders

By Tim Winton

Fred Scully is determined to carve a new life for himself and his young family in Ireland. For months he has laboured alone to make their dilapidated cottage habitable, and now his wife and child are coming to meet him: this will be their fresh start. But when he arrives at the airport to collect them, only his small daughter steps off the plane . . .

So begins Tim Winton's The Riders, shortlisted for the Booker Prize. This is Scully’s desperate journey across Europe, trying to track down the wife he comes to realize he didn’t know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: May 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781447201786

Tim Winton

Tim Winton has published over twenty books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into many different languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). Active in the environmental movement, he is the Patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society. He lives in Western Australia.

Reviews for The Riders

[brismegsie · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Tedious and overrated.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Scully is a hard-working Australian who can turn his hand to most physical labour. He is not good looking especially since he got injured in a brawl on a fishing boat and almost lost his eye. For a while after that he went to university and studied architecture. He met his wife, Jennifer, there and he abandoned school to work again. They have one child, Billie, and when Jennifer got her long service leave the three of them headed to Europe. They spent some time in London where Scully worked with a group of hard Irishmen on building sites. After spending time in Paris and Greece Jennifer got pregnant and they decided to head home to Australia. First though they spent a week in Ireland catching up with their friends and they found an old stone house in an advanced state of disrepair. Jennifer fell in love with the house so Scully and she agreed to buy it and fix it up to live in. Scully stayed in Ireland to do the initial fixing up while Jennifer and Billie went back to Australia to sell the house in Fremantle and ship their belongings. At least that was the plan as far as Scully knew it. When Billie got off the plane in Shannon she was alone and there was no message from Jennifer. Scully's life implodes with this development and he searches throughout Europe for answers. Billie, who is only 7 years old, is traumatized but remarkably resilient and she accompanies him everywhere.This is as much a story about fathers and daughters as it is about husbands and wives. I shuddered many times at what Billie was being put through. However, it is clear that she and Scully have a deep bond. Most of the time Scully can be relied upon to look out for Billie. On those occasions when he is too deep into his own despair to think of her it is hard to blame him. On the other hand, it was easy to despise Jennifer. If you want out of a marriage there are other ways to do it that won't traumatize your daughter. Even if Scully isn't the best spouse he appears to have tried to do his best for both Jennifer and Billie. He certainly worked hard to put food on their table and a roof over their head. Jennifer, on the other hand, spent her time trying various artistic endeavours such as writing and painting while they were living in Europe. She was not good enough at either to succeed artistically, let alone contribute financially.I'm not quite sure what the riders of the title mean but I think part of the message is that we can fight and search for our dream but sometimes we will be left out in the cold. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep fighting and searching though.

[pamplemousse_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Harrowing, but brilliant. The story seems to be about the central character's "awakening" to the life of those around him. He begins with a comfortable and self-contained view of things -- he's happily bumbling around renovating the cottage -- when BANG, his wife suddenly and inexplicably leaves him (and their child). He then has to undertake a journey in pursuit before he comes to an understanding, if not an acceptance, of why. Buggered if I know what the Riders meant though -- I confess to being a bit mystified by the ending.

[sianpr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was really gripped by this book - the story of Scully and his 7-year-old daughter who are abandoned by Scully's wife - thus follows a long chase through Europe - Greece, Italy, Paris, Amsterdam to try and find her. Winton conjures up the anguish of those who are left behind when family members disappear. Not too sure about the way women are depicted in the book - I wondered whether it was necessary to introduce Irma, a vampire like creature who doesn't seem to lend anything to the plot or overall story - surely one femme fatale, in the shape of the mother, was sufficient?

[puckw-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written, but an unlikely story. Like all of Tim Winton's books I have read, I kept reading because of the language, but his characters test this reader's patience, here even more than in other books

[kalky_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is dark, haunting, heart-wrenching, and absolutely fantastic. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but Tim Winton's writing sucks you in if you let it, and this book doesn't let you go until it spits you out at the end. It's a fantastic book for discussion, although I expect half of readers will love it and half will hate it.

[elizabethcromb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great to read TW expanding beyond the Australian landscape by travelling Europe while setting his people in Ireland. A heart wrenching depiction of a man and his 7 year old daughter scouring Europe for his strayed wife. Unresolved but accepted while still unsure of why she left.

[springerluv · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It took me a long time to get into this book - I got awfully bored with this guy building the house for his wife and daughter. ... it went on and on and ON. But once the daughter stepped off the airplane, along, I did become interested. I would have liked more action, and had a bit of trouble identifying all the characters he ran into while trying to find the wife. I did not like the ending - to me, it was no ending at all. I felt like the author, like me, just got tired. All in all I"m glad I didn't recommend it to my book club.

[shrubbery_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Mr Pretentious trots out another dull book. With no interesting characters or scenes, this may well be the most tedious read I've ever endured. It bordered on cathartic.

[smik_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This may not have been the best book to read as an audio book, because there were many passages that, had it been a paper publication, I would have re-read.Stanley McGeagh's Irish accent, as the voice of an Australian character, took a bit of getting used to.After Scully's wife fails to turn up on the flight, and Billie gets off the flight alone, the book is mainly about trying to locate Jennifer and to work out why she has seemingly deserted him. Billie is withdrawn and won't utter a word about where her mother is.In the manner of the Shiralee, Scully drags his daughter through Europe looking for Jennifer, returning to places that as a family they have visited before. Some former friends rather mysteriously won't talk to him.Circumstances dictated that we listened to THE RIDERS over a long period of time, nearly two months in fact, probably missing the significance of some events, and certainly not understanding some references. For example, it was hard to work out where the title came from. There was a passage at the very beginning about riders that I would have liked to check although I did get a little help from Wikipedia. The novel deals with ideas of architecture, Australia, Europe, masculinity and trust. It also asks the question of self-identity, and how well you can ever truly know someone else. The book draws on the European mythology of the Wild Hunt, hence "The Riders".I also checked what Percy Middlemiss had to say in his review.So I've come away a bit disappointed by this book, but it is probably related to the fact that we "read" it as an audio book over far too long a passage of time.It was after all a nominee for the Man Booker Prize in 1995.

[fourbears_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

: I’ve liked what I’ve read of Winton (Cloudstreet and Dirt Music) and this one is no exception. The main character, Scully, is from Freemantle in Western Australia. He’s a big, unattractive guy, a laborer whose skills are currently put to use renovating an old Irish farmhouse which had taken his wife’s fancy on a visit to Ireland. His wife, Jennifer, who’s pregnant with their second child, is in Australia with their 7 year-old daughter, Billie, typing loose ends for their planned move to Ireland.On the day—shortly before Christmas—when his family is supposed to arrive at Shannon, Billie is alone on the plane, scared enough that she can’t even talk to tell her father what happened to Jennifer. The airline shows Jennifer arrived at Heathrow but didn’t continue on to Shannon. Scully, panicked and not thinking clearly, takes off after her, Billie in tow, and they end up on a frantic trip to London, a Greek island where they’d lived happily before Ireland, Paris, and Amsterdam. The third person narrative shifts occasionally from Scully to Billie’s point of view, particularly as the former gets more and more out of control (he’s accused of murder (wrongly) in Greece but runs anyway and in Amsterdam he’s arrested, drunk and dirty. At one point—after he’s stolen money from Irma, a good-hearted but screwy woman who’s clearly attracted to him and wants to help, Billie practically takes control, appropriating the money. Scully gets more and more desperate, chasing women on the street who look like Jennifer, while Billie, devoted to her father, doesn’t particularly want her mother back.Gradually, partly through Billie’s point of view, the reader gets a picture of Jennifer, as a woman, more educated than Scully, with a yen to be an artist, but evidently without the talent. Whether she ever loved Scully is unclear, but during what he sees as a romantic period of living in Europe, with Scully working on house renovations with other illegals to get them money, Jennifer’s been seeking out more sophisticated friends, artists and writers and wannabes like herself. The child she carries may not be Scully’s; in fact, there may not even be a child….Two somewhat blatant associations clarify the meaning of Scully’s desperation. The first is the poem, “On Raglan Road” by Australian Patrick Kavanagh which is quoted in the text. The poem is about a man who “loved too much” and “wooed not as I should a creature made of clay”. An angel who loved like that would lose his wings, concludes the poem. The second reference is to “the riders”, a group of gypsies in Ireland—travelers, that Scully sees and is attracted by early in the novel and then again at the very end when, on New Year’s night he follows Billie out into the snow to the ruined castle near their Irish farmhouse. There some riders have paused, but this time Scully rejects the itinerate life they lead—and presumably the traveling he’s been doing himself.

[love2laf · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Yes, it is beautifully written, and intriguing, but the ending left me flat and I wanted more answers. Probably more a failing of mine than the author's, I'm a traditional, stodgy reader who wants an ending that's traditional.

[nbsp_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A pregnantwoman disappears leaving her husband and young daughter in an old Irish farmhousehe's been renovating while she sells their home in Australia. They search for her to no avail. Two eerie scenes early on and the last scene involve visions of riders that appear in the castle down the hill from the farmhouse.I'm not sure I understood the point of this book. It was dreamy, emotional - reminded me of Ishiguro's The Unconsoled which baffled me as well.That aside, there was some writing I really appreciated: the description of Greece, their life there and the people; a hotel lobby in Paris, "a warehouse of piled luggage and language." And the wife's complaint to her husband, "'People like you...You don't get it, do you? You like your life just fine, you take whatever comes with a sick kind of gratitude. That's where we're different' And he had to agree. He just DIDN'T get it." I loved this - that Catholic gratitude my husband and I have discussed, with roles reversed. I think this must be the dangerous complacency this book supposedly illustrates so well.

[niecierpek · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A comparison comes to mind with Henry James- and his “portrait”of “old” Europe: sophisticated, elegant, blasé and rotten under its delicate skin, juxtaposed Australia- new, uncomplicated, unspoiled and sincere.Fred Scully is an optimistic, “uncomplicated young Australian”, terribly in love with his much more pretentious wife and with his intelligent seven year old daughter, with whom he appears to have an almost extrasensory relationship. He is a man who likes to work with his hands, with no hang-ups about the type of employment that would provide money for his family. The book starts when he is renovating an old Irish farmhouse where his family has decided to move to and settle. He is alone and anxiously waiting for his family. His wife and daughter will come as soon as the house in Australia has been sold and all documents are in order. The day comes to pick them up from the airport and his daughter comes out. Alone. No sight of his wife, no note, no telegram, nothing. His traumatized daughter is of no help. Dropping everything, Scully frantically sets out to look for his wife in Europe. I enjoyed this book on many levels: I really liked the “anti-hero” hero of this book, possibly misunderstood by many readers who, like his European friends, misunderstand and underestimate him, and as I have read, call him “a working class hero”. In my opinion, Scully is and isn’t one. He works with his hands, yes, but he has also studied architecture, he reads Slaughterhouse Five, The World According to Garp - he is more of a free man who provides a living the way he can. He is also gifted in what he does. It was also refreshing to see a really good daughter- father relationship in a book for a change. I like the lyricism of the language, especially in the descriptions of nature and landscape which appeal to all senses and are done wonderfully and with a type of sensitivity that is almost tangible for me.

[motorbike_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first read this book soon after it was released and loved it. The second reading recently was just as good. I can quite understand why at least half the readers hate this book and I am sad that they missed the point of the book.For me the mysticism of this book lies in the proposition how do you live your life with big questions hanging over you that don't have answers. For Fred Scully that happened when collecting his wife and daughter at the airport in Ireland to start their new life in the house he had spent the last month frantically renovating, but only his 7 year old daughter Billie steps off the plane. No word from wife Jennifer and a daughter that has been scared mute. The 3 of them spent the last 2 years travelling around Europe, largely so Jennifer, bored with her Civil Service job in Australia and at odds with her parent's upbringing of her, could find herself and her purpose in life. Scully, hopelessly in love with his wife and a heart of gold that saw only good in other people, worked at black market building jobs to fund their adventure. In the days before returning to Australia Jennifer falls in love with a rundown cottage in Ireland and they buy it on a whim. Scully stays behind to make the place habitable while Jennifer returns to Australia to sell the house and finalise their affairs. What is he to do? No word from Jennifer, no-one he dare asks about Jennifer is none the wiser. After reviewing their 2 years in Europe Scully believes that Jennifer has run off with her painting tutor in Greece. And so with Billie he starts a desparate "journey into hell" to find Jennifer, a journey that forces him to cast aside his hopelessly in love attitude and see his wife and himself for what they really are. There is a certain frenetic pace in the story as at every stage Jennifer is no closer, and there is no insight into her actions, and more is revealed about both characters that becomes harder for Scully to accept. The journey is particularly hard on Billie who is forced to grow up very quickly as her father slips slowly into a depressive state as leads turn to nought and the money runs out. The scenes in Amsterdam are pretty depressing and disturbing.The title comes from the Irish tale of zombie-like riders in the night who show no emotion and appear totally removed and oblivious to the world around them who just ride on and on as if they have nothing to live for, and reflect the state that Scully finds himself, and as his journey progresses, appears destined to join. However, the journey is catharctic and through it Scully realises his way out of his state. Its a very different read to his other books, particularly to Cloudstreet which appears to be his most popular work (its been turned into movie, a television series and an opera!). It has echoes of an earlier work That Eye The Sky. And there are no answers. The Riders is definitely my choice for Tim Winton's best work.

[bcquinnsmom · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Riders were "unseen, patient, dogged faithful in all weathers and all worlds, waiting for something promised, something that was plainly their due..." When Fred Scully started out his new life in Ireland he was a rider. Scully, his wife Jennifer and their daughter Billie, all from Australia, traveled throughout Europe, where he would take on the grunt jobs to keep them alive while Jennifer explored herself, painting, writing, going to parties with her artsy friends. In one of their travels, they ended up in Ireland, where out exploring, they found a small house which used to belong to the caretaker of an old castle. Jennifer knew immediately that she had to have this place, so they bought it. All that was left to do was to go back to Australia, sell their current place, tidy up some loose ends & then she & Billie would be back while Scully got the place ready for their arrival. On the day that Jennifer and Billie were to arrive at the airport in Shannon, Scully goes to meet them. However, there's a problem...only Billie gets off the plane from Heathrow, where the Qantas plane from Australia landed before she switched planes to go to Ireland. Billie won't say a word; obviously she is traumatized by something. At his wits end, Scully tries to figure out where Jennifer might be and sets off traveling throughout Europe to find her. But the question is, does Jennifer want to be found?This novel was incredible. It has been criticized for not tidying things up at the end, not putting together the loose ends that dangle waiting for answers. However, as we all know, many times some of the most pressing questions in life go unanswered. Personally, I don't think those questions needed to be answered because all in all, if you read it carefully, you'll realize that those points are irrelevant...redemption for Scully & for Billie come in the realization that all that really matters is having the strength to go on. I very highly recommend this book. It is not a book full of warm fuzzies, indeed it is very dark and disturbing.The writing is most excellent and the characterization is perfect. Highly, highly recommended.

[celerydog_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Just wallowed in the brilliant writing; wasn't bothered by the ambiguity. Need to read more by this author.

[stillbeing · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I tried to read it. Honestly I did. I got past the mundane stuff at the beginning until it started to get interesting 100 pages in or so, but I just couldn't take it any more. I wanted to care and be interested in about the mysterious, monumental event happening in the main character's life, but I just couldn't. I seldom give up on a book, but this was just frustrating - the characters dull at best, exasperating at their worst, the awkward turns of phrase, and plot so improbable just it turned me off for good. It almost felt like the author took that old technique of inventing a character and finding as many obstacles to put in their way as possible and just left it at that. The constant "oh, wasn't everything perfect before" reminiscence rubbish was just boring and the main character's reaction to adversity somewhat maddening. And don't get me started on the random changing of tense in intermittent chapters . . . is there anything more annoying?But I did try, and I did keep an open mind, really I did. There are just times when all you can do is quit.

[laine4cunningham · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those books that when I was done, I just thought, Wow! I'll be thinking about this one for a very long time. A lot of complexity here with his daughter, the international journey to look for his wife, and his own demons. I really enjoyed this one and recommend it!

[tgamble54 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I didn't finish the book because I found the main character's actions so unrealistic. His wife disappears on a flight with his 7 year old daughter and he doesn't alert the police. His daughter is traumatized and can't speak but he doesn't get her medical care. He then takes his daughter with him to Greece hoping his wife may have gone there. There might be people who would respond like that but I can't buy it. I ended up reading about half of the book.

[hvhay_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good in parts, ultimately unbelievable and unsatisfying.