The book opens with the arrival in Tasmania of a man with the assumed identity of "Martin David, Naturalist" (referred to as M in the narrative).

Arriving back he finds Lucy "drug addled and confused" and that Sass has rummaged through his belongings after suspecting him of lying about her father.

Mindy's wife relates that during his absence Sass was admitted to a children's hospital in Sydney, having been involved in a house fire that left her severely burned.

"[3] With regards to its central premise, the pursuit of a creature by an obsessive man, the book has been compared to Moby-Dick — an influence that Leigh herself has acknowledged.

Brewer's study of the book applied ideas of the sublime to the text's treatment of loss and extinction; he labelled it a "peculiarly ecological novel".

"[6] Commenting on her writing style, Lisa Darnell of The Guardian noted that "It is rare to find a first-time novelist who can so confidently avoid the confessional — albeit by reinventing Hemingway.

[10] The book was made into the 2011 film of the same title directed by Daniel Nettheim, starring Willem Dafoe, Frances O'Connor, and Sam Neill.