Laura Fraser grows up in Sydney, Australia, motherless, with a cold, professional father and an artistic bent. Ravi Mendes is on the other side of the world–his humble father dead, his mother struggling, he determined to make it by way of the burgeoning field of computer science. Their stories alternate throughout Michelle de Kretser’s ravishing new novel, culminating in unlikely fates for them both, destinies influenced by travel–voluntary in her case, enforced in his.

When Laura inherited money from the aunt who raised her, she set off to see the world-alone,” because two makes one a tourist.” When Ravi’s family was devastated by a politically motivated atrocity, he sought asylum in Sydney. The two meet there at a travel-guide publishing house. She is an editor who lives with an elderly Italian, and he is a website designer who wants only to make a living, see a bit of Australia, and possibly court Hana, a cosmopolitan Ethiopian woman. Where do these disparate characters truly belong? With her trademark subtlety, Michelle de Kretser shows us that, in the 21st century, they belong wherever they want to and can be–home or away. She has written a masterful novel for our time that resonates with dazzling beauty, uncanny common sense, sharp wit, and a deep knowledge of what makes us tick.