A gorgeously written, immersive and deeply moving novel about the stories that shape us and the memories that ensnare us.
Longlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize 2025
In 1929, young Jack travels with his parents to Henry Ford's rubber-tree plantation in the Brazilian Amazon. In this lushly beautiful but dangerous place, he loses his much-loved mother to a horrific accident. This has terrible repercussions for his family, and Jack is eventually forced into the jungle to search for his absent father.
Seven decades later, living in the heart of Michigan's rust belt on the cusp of a new millennium, Jack faces the challenges of old age, including the gradual loss of his wife of fifty years, whose memory is disappearing even as Jack's own memories insistently resurface to invade and colonise his present.
Everything Lost, Everything Found, from master storyteller Matthew Hooton, is haunting, tender and poignant, a rich and emotional novel about loss, grief and memory, and how the past never truly leaves us.
'Memory rises and ebbs in this poignant novel spanning almost a century ... Hooton's novel is an emotive and richly told tale of grief and loss, of family and the haunted halls of memory ... vivid, free- flowing and immersive.' Sydney Morning Herald
'Beautifully written ...A remarkable book by a master storyteller' Newtown Review of Books