Three generations of one family coping with life on the land in Western Victoria. Through the struggles of drought and low wool prices they learn to adapt to the situations that they experience.
This is a book of contemporary Australian fiction, a book which was in gestation for a long time before it had the opportunity to be written.
It is not an autobiographical account, but the stories have been built around events and issues that occurred when my family rented two cottages on the property to paying guests. It is historically accurate as far as the climatological features are concerned of drought and rainfall and also the marked variations in stock and wool prices.
The township of Dallang is purely fictional as is the name of the property. No characters represented in this book are intended to bear a resemblance to any living person known. The aboriginal names used here, such as Kartorr, Dallang, Baa, and Yambaar are taken from a book published in 1881, by James Dawson, titled Australian Aborigines.
It is historically correct that these names come from the Kolor* tribe of aborigines whose territory covered part of the area where this novel is fictionally situated.
Excerpt
Martin and his father poured water from both hoses to flood the room in the small cottage where inside a grotesque blackened figure had just collapsed to the floor amongst the flames.
Headlights were coming up the drive. A truck raced up the side past the big cottage. More headlights appeared, more trucks arrived. Voices shouted. Directions were given. Men were running. Water pumps started sputtering into life, their noisy motors shattering the peace of the countryside as hundreds of gallons of water began bombarding the cottage on all sides.
Professional Reviews
Alison Lewis writes
Trying to make a living out of life on the land will never be easy. Any victories are usually won at a price. Hardships and deprevations seem familiar friends. You make the most of what you have never expecting to much in return yet there are triumphs and joys there too, there is beauty and peace. We find resourcefulness and eventually there is contentment in that place called home.
Vivian Waring writes
What a superb, visual painting of the landscape set in rural Victoria with the misty Grampians looming over the property that the Nelson family have farmed since the early 1800's.
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