My Father Bryce

Dynamic, complex, driven: Bryce Courtenay was all of these as well as one of Australia's most beloved authors. To his son Adam, he was larger than life, mercurial, and impossible to know completely. In this moving, unforgettable memoir, Adam searches for the real Bryce.

Bryce Courtenay was one of Australia's highest-selling and most-loved authors as well as a larger-than-life character. From his first book, The Power of One, he captivated readers. With his third, the non-fiction title April Fool's Day, he captured their hearts. Many of his fans would have thought they knew him, and they did - they knew the version of him that he wanted to present to the world.

Bryce's son Adam also knew that version. And he knew the Bryce the rest of the world only glimpsed, or never saw at all. His father was a natural born storyteller and occasional fabulist whose tales never quite felt true. He was a man who forever publicly grieved the loss of his son Damon, the subject of April Fool's Day, but who seemed reluctant to connect with his remaining two sons.

Several years after his death, Bryce still looms large in Adam's life. In seeking to understand his father, who made so many people happy with his books, Adam recounts his own 1960s and 1970s childhood, Bryce's career in advertising and his metamorphosis into bestselling novelist. In the years after The Power of One, Bryce became a household name even as his personal life was plagued by tragedy and heartbreak - some of his own making. All the while Adam did his best to love his father and hang on through the wild ride of his life.

Adam Courtenay is a Sydney-based writer and journalist. He has had a long career in the UK and Australia, writing for papers such as the Financial Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the UK Sunday Times. He is the son of Australia's best-loved storyteller Bryce Courtenay and the author of several Australian histories, including The Ship that Never Was, Three Sheets to the Wind and Mr Todd's Marvel.

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