The Butterfly Man

Today I was dangerous. I wanted to confess. I wanted to tell her stories I had held back all these years.

The second cover design for The Butterfly Man originally published by University of Queensland Press in 2005. This edition published 2007. It continued in print until it was acquired by Allen & Unwin in 2025 and is now redesigned and published in the suite of new covers.

Winner of the Davitt Award 2006
Short-listed for the 2006 Nita B Kibble Award
Long-listed for the 2007 IMPAC Awards in Ireland

The success of this exquisitely crafted novel is that it is difficult to remind oneself that it is a work of imagination.”

The Western Australian

The Butterfly Man

Today I was dangerous. I wanted to confess. I wanted to tell her stories I had held back all these years.

The success of this exquisitely crafted novel is that it is difficult to remind oneself that it is a work of imagination.”

This is a moving novel about a man’s struggle to say goodbye to those who have come to love him for the lies he has told…”

Despite the brutal murder that lies at the heart of this impressive novel, the tone of The Butterfly Man is strangely gentle, almost meditative.”

Rose’s lyrical melding … is masterful. Intriguing as the real-life events of the Lucan story are, Rose transforms it into something far more substantial.”