A Far-flung Life by ML Stedman review – a masterful examination of loss

In her follow-up to The Light Between Oceans, the Western Australian author follows generations of a farming family as they weather calamity and change Moral ambiguity was the eddying undercurrent of ML Stedman’s immensely popular 2012 debut, The Light Between Oceans, about a couple who discover a baby on the shores of their remote island home off the coast of Western Australia. It’s been a long time since that novel, which spurred an international bidding war and sparked a lacklustre film adaptation. In her second work, A Far-flung Life, Stedman remains just as preoccupied by what governs our understanding of right and wrong, as well as how we define our sense of family and identity. A Far-flung Life, also set in WA, begins in 1958 and follows several generations of the MacBride family on their million-acre sheep ranch, Meredith Downs. Here, small decisions have vast consequences: when the patriarch, Phil, swerves to avoid a kangaroo while driving home from the market, he and his eldest son, Warren, are killed. Matt, the youngest son, only just survives. Lorna, suddenly a widow, takes over the reins of the ranch, now the sole parent not only of Matt, whose amnesic head injury