The Name of the Sister

A young woman stumbles onto an outback road at night, and is caught in the headlights of an approaching car. Who is she? Nobody knows, and she has lost the ability to speak. She is rushed to hospital and then exposed to the glare of the TV cameras.

This is how the story of the Unknown Woman begins, setting off a media firestorm that catches the eye of Angie, a freelance journalist and childhood friend of Bev, the police inspector in charge of identifying Jane, as the Unknown Woman is dubbed, and tracking down her assailant. Dozens of people step forward claiming to know Jane and to hold the key to her identity.

Gail Jones new novel, set in Sydney and the Mars-red landscapes surrounding the remote mining town of Broken Hill, explores how stories about identity and history multiply in the absence of reliable facts. And then the stories redouble once the Unknown Woman is identified and given a name. In an urgent finale that neither of the major characters could have anticipated, contradictory clues will proliferate about the true name of the sister.