The Antipodeans

Greg McGee

Three generations, two continents, one forgotten secret

LONGLISTED: Ockham New Zealand Book Awards

In 1942, two Kiwi prisoners-of-war escape their German captors with the help of a sympathetic Italian family. Fast-forward to 2014, when a dying rugby coach returns to Venice determined to confront his past, accompanied by his daughter who is fleeing hers.

The Antipodeans is an impassioned story of love and betrayal that spans three generations of a New Zealand family and their interaction with three families of Northern Italy.

From the assassination of a Gestapo commander in the last days of Italian resistance to the cold-blooded murder of a Red Brigades idealist in the Seventies, The Antipodeans is a novel of epic proportions in which families from the opposite ends of the earth discover an inter-generational legacy of love, blood and betrayal.

‘Finding out how the past has shaped and informed the present gives this enthralling book the tautness of a thriller ... Remarkable’ New Zealand Listener

‘A big narrative ... The plot is gaunt yet speedy; characters are complex and convincing; setting is evoked deftly’ New Zealand Herald

‘Like a Venetian Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, The Antipodeans lifts the lid on the violent, messy recent history of a part of Europe which is now a tourist mecca and tells a rich, intense story of decades-old wrongs of the heart’ Simon Edge, author of The Hopkins Conundrum

‘A truly engrossing and superbly woven tale, The Antipodeans is a spellbinding read. Bravissimo!’ Ian Thornton, author of The Great and Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms

Paperback: 448pp

Published: Lightning (February 2018)

ISBN: 9781785630583