Tom Hope doesn't think he's much of a farmer, but he's doing his best. He can't have been much of a husband to Trudy, either, judging by her sudden departure. It's only when she returns, pregnant to someone else, that he discovers his surprising talent as a father. So when Trudy finds Jesus and takes little Peter away with her to join the holy rollers, Tom's heart breaks all over again.
Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic smalltown bookseller: the second Jew—and the most vivid person—Tom has ever met. He dares to believe they could make each other happy.
But it is 1968: twenty-four years since Hannah and her own little boy arrived at Auschwitz. Tom Hope is taking on a battte with heartbreak he can barely even begin to imagine.
Robert Hillman has written a number of books including his 2004 memoir The Boy in the Green Suit, which won the National Biography Award, and Joyful, published by Text in 2014. He died in 2024.
'Hillman's novel is an impressive, riveting tale of how two disparate and well-drawn people recover from soul-wrenching grief and allow themselves to truly love again.' Publishers Weekly
'It is not often that a novel is both a great read and a sobering chronicle about the painful possibilities of human behaviour...Robert Hillman's The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted is such a one.' Sydney Morning Herald
'Hillman's ability to conjure up the rhythms and texture of rural life is a source of joy...This is a novel about the importance of freedom as well as the redemptive qualities of love – and how facing up to the past can be the key to both freedom and love.' Saturday Paper
'Robert Hillman entwines, with risk and skill, different and seemingly incompatible stories...He adds heft to the distinguished fiction of rural Australia.' Australian
