The Dawn Birds

This is a story in which love, faith and loyalty collide over a series of decades. The tale is told in turn by three friends who meet at college, namely Elda, Luke and Gordon. She is a young student mesmerised by the personality of ‘Father’ Luke who is a Jesuit priest with ideas that don’t always accord with Church dogma, especially when it comes to love. ‘He loves me, he loves me not,’ she would repeat at night whilst he knelt dutifully at his prayers.

An antidote to Luke was Gordon and his kilt. And so, they went their separate ways only to meet up again later in life, in Africa, with a whole new set of challenges, disasters and ultimate triumph.

Alwyn Dow is a much travelled and experienced author with three previous publications to his name. He says that his books, including this one, are a mixture of fact and fiction and therefore, works of ‘faction’, a term coined by Truman Capote. He adds that his underlying themes always include individuals faced with moral dilemmas in the circumstances in which they find themselves. The Dawn Birds takes some inspiration from The Thorn Birds, but is set in Africa.