At its heart, The Salamanders is a love story.

Arthur lives in a hut by the Hawkesbury River, the detritus of suburban life gradually encroaching. When Rosie, the adopted daughter of his fathers' second wife returns from England to visit. their time together raises childhood memories of their father Peregrine, a famous and controversial artist, and what happened at a holiday by the ocean years ago.

Rosie, Arthur and Peregrine are characters the reader will find it hard to let go of, and this is also a subtle, affecting novel of ideas. With poetic, hallucinatory power, Lane explores how art can become life, how we as adults cannot truly escape the past and the influence of our parents, and how we might embrace the intensity and beauty of the moment as we journey towards reconciliation.

'This is the shape-shifting detail of life, the tiny horrible and beautiful things we don't notice until fever or trauma stop us in our tracks; Lane has pulled them from the depths of our psyche and written them into a story of family that shifts and tilts the world we know. Dreamlike, nightmarish, unforgettable.' – Jane Rawson, author of A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists and Formaldehyde

‘With the fluidity of Virginia Woolf, The Salamanders flows from a holiday, to a road trip into Australia’s endless interior, to the wan light of England. The story is spurred by Peregrine, a charismatic but self-absorbed artist who creates and destroys, compels and repels. He fashions his children into wanderers like himself, who then follow in his wake to understand themselves. Infused with questions of art, intimacy and family, Lane’s attention to how we are tethered to a place, yet how we drift physically and psychologically from it, allows him to deftly explore the Australian psyche. The result is a wry, elegant and engaging read.’ – Jessica White, author A Curious Intimacy and Entitlement