Tim Winton’s elegiac collection of seventeen linked short stories, The Turning (HarperCollins), explores the frailty and foibles of human existence, the power and pain of memory and the mighty wildness of western Australia. Characters reappear in large and small roles throughout the stories, which take place from the 197s to the present: in “On Her Knees,” young Vic, the copper’s son, accompanies his mother while she cleans people’s homes; in “Damaged Goods,” Vic’s wife examines his obsession with Alison, the girl with a birthmark whom he loved as a teenager; and in “Commission,” Vic’s mother sends him to tell his long-lost father in the outback that she’s dying. Winton shows compassion for his flawed characters, especially the men, and while each story is complete in itself, the collection as a whole builds into an intricate and haunting portrait of complex people and the unique landscape they inhabit.