Eight young lives come together in Adelaide, beneath the solar eclipse of 1958. They remain entangled as their orbits extend across the planet and the upheavals of the next four decades. They are artists and politicians, philanthropists and hedonists, immigrants and expatriates and the original inhabitants of the continent, all bound-perhaps-by the ancient remains taken from an outback burial ground. They are the custodians of secrets and memories, hope and shame, the past and the future. Epic and intimate, historic and ecstatic, The Custodians remains an urgent and compelling classic. 'A novel of characters but also of ideas that takes us to the heart of Australia now.' -David Malouf 'An intimate, risk-taking portrait of our modern Australian lives.' -Jane Campion