{"product_id":"2026100008998-secondhand-the-refuge-a-confession","title":"The Refuge: A Confession","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdition: 1st ed.,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA work of rare psychological intensity, The Refuge: A Confession by Australian author Seaforth Mackenzie presents the intimate inner world of a narrator compelled to reckon with his own complicity, desire, and self-deception. Set against the backdrop of mid-twentieth century Australian life, the novel chronicles a deeply personal confession that lays bare the tensions between social expectation and private yearning, casting its protagonist in an unsparing moral light. The subtitle — a confession — signals from the outset that this is no ordinary narrative; it is an act of deliberate, almost painful self-exposure.\n\nMackenzie, best known for The Young Desire It and Dead Men Rising, writes with a lyrical precision that balances brutal honesty with literary grace, drawing the reader into a world where self-knowledge is both the wound and the cure. His prose carries the measured cadence of a writer acutely conscious of language's power to both conceal and reveal. Framed by a striking epigraph from Michael Faul's The Anatomy of Failure — a reminder that all created things are by their nature false — the novel invites readers to question the very act of confession itself. Is the refuge a sanctuary, or merely another beautifully constructed lie?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49342781587675,"sku":"2026100008998-SECONDHAND","price":100.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/08865aba-7f49-48bb-a1cf-d844f8d8ed27.png?v=1790049490","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100008998-secondhand-the-refuge-a-confession","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}