{"product_id":"2026100009235-secondhand-across-the-sea-wall-signed","title":"Across The Sea Wall (SIGNED)","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdition: First Edition\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: Signed\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Signed ephemera laid-in. Price clipped dj. Foxing on book block. Binding remains tight. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA young Australian man sets sail from his homeland on a voyage of self-discovery that will carry him through the vivid, intoxicating landscapes of Asia in Across the Sea Wall, Christopher Koch's evocative second novel. Robert O'Brien, restless and yearning, finds himself drawn into a world of beauty, moral complexity, and romantic obsession — particularly through his encounter with a mysterious and elusive European woman whose past is as turbulent as the seas that separate their worlds. Koch chronicles O'Brien's journey not merely as a physical crossing of borders, but as a profound psychological passage from innocence into experience, set against the teeming, kaleidoscopic backdrop of 1950s Asia.\n\nWidely regarded as a key work in Koch's celebrated oeuvre, Across the Sea Wall illustrates the author's signature gift for rendering place with almost cinematic intensity, immersing the reader in sights, sounds, and moral ambiguities that linger long after the final page. Koch's prose carries the lyrical precision and cultural depth that would later define his Miles Franklin Award-winning masterpiece, The Year of Living Dangerously, making this earlier novel essential reading for admirers of Australian literature. Rich in themes of exile, longing, and the impossibility of truly knowing another person, it raises a question that haunts every chapter: can one ever truly cross the wall that separates one soul from another?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49216179732699,"sku":"2026100009235-SECONDHAND","price":250.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/d8e2dceb-acd0-4986-9794-2698b6776be3.png?v=1788404750","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100009235-secondhand-across-the-sea-wall-signed","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}