In the midst of her life with her small brother and unpredictable mother, Pearl is a child who strives to get things right. But the events of one summer's day are about to change her life, and nothing may ever be right again. In ways connected but unforeseen, this child's tragedy will also enter the lives of two strangers. Sonia lives in a cooler, greener part of the city, where she is learning to live alone after the death of her famous husband. And at the edge of the city, close to the beaches, in a run-down building, the young sculptor Adam Logan contemplates the celebrity that his artwork has brought to him.

Through a seductively woven plot that reflects the interlacing nature of our lives, Careless explores the ties of caring and responsibility, for the living and the dead, that are formed, and broken, in our society.

Deborah Robertson was born in Bridgetown, Western Australia, in 1959. Her first book, Proudflesh, won the Steele Rudd Award for the best Australian short story collection in 1998. Her novel, Careless, won the 2007 Nita B. Kibble Award and the 2006 Colin Roderick Award, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, the Age Book of the Year and longlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize.