Published in Australia in 2009, Barley Patch was Murnane's first book in fourteen years, written after a period in which he had thought he would never write fiction again. The book begins with the question, "Must I write?" What follows is both a chronicle of the images that have endured in the author's mind and an exploration of their nature. The clarity of the images is extraordinary, as is their range, from Mandrake the Magician to the bachelor...