I know sometimes I am waaaay behind the game. I know this book was published in 1991, and I know that far greater heads than mine have critiqued it.

But for those of you like me, who have somehow missed out on reading it until now, I would recommend that you do.

I didn’t enjoy my first experience of Winton – it was The Riders, and I was quite mystified by its sense of misty nothingness. My second experience of Winton was Breath. Now that grabbed my attention. If you haven’t read that, you really should.

Cloudstreet is a very different book to Breath. Still, there is Winton’s mastery of characterisations, rich landscapes, and vivid adolescence. But it’s not so gut-wrenchingly dark. Cloudstreet is a serious, funny, and wildly visionary book – “Fair dinkum,” as the parrot would say.

Yes, well. I loved it. I might even have to stretch myself to read Dirt Music now.