Karen Harbutt

Entropy Karen Harbutt

As a psychologist of quiet acclaim who never expected to understand his own family, William would reconstruct December 14, 1973, as a day of firsts - the first time he had felt rain, the first time he had been on a bicycle and the first and only time in his life (he predicted) that he would come close to drowning. He had no recollection of that day and despite his grandmother's discomfort when he had asked her about it, there was nothing to suggest to him that he had suppressed a memory too confronting to process. He only knew that it was a significant day, as they are for everyone when fate takes on the disquieting role of guardian after it is relinquished by a parent.

Entropy is the story of three generations linked by circumstance and secrecy, following them through discovery, growth, betrayal, loss and regeneration.

Against the backdrop of war, outback railway towns, forced adoptions and the stolen generation, the characters each stare down the contradictions that undermine who they think they are, and a restlessness that threatens the belief that they can be genuinely happy.

Along the way, Entropy explores a 'bush philosophy' of what it is to be human - to live with a storm inside the calm.