‘What are the crimes of love, anyway, but fragments of passion broken from their moorings, evidence of a kind of shipwreck? (But what kind of ship? Where was it? What was its name?) Or crows, a flock of them, high in the air, fighting against a wind that no-one can see.’

David Brooks’ mastery of the written word is both evocative and compelling in this, his fourth collection of stories and his first in almost twenty years. These pieces capture unforgettable images of streetscapes and heartscapes, grappling with concepts of time and memory, tenderness, morality, creativity and solitude.

Profound and illuminating, Napoleon’s Roads is a celebration of the rich possibility of language and expression from one of the finest poets and prose stylists in contemporary Australian literature.