A compressed epic of conflict, identity, love and loss.
Whitby Downs, a famous cattle station on the Clarence River, has been in Whitby hands since the 1840s, but now they are selling up. Or are they? Family conflicts, generational splits, commercial opportunism - nothing is black and white in the fight over Whitby Downs.
From its opening section, 'Freehold', (Geoff Page's third verse novel), a parallel exchange of nineteenth century letters, takes a profound look at what land can come to mean to its owners across a hundred and fifty years. Or several thousand . . .
Geoff Page is very well known in Australian literary circles as he has published over 20 books. He is also known for his reviews over many years on ABC Radio National Books & Writing and The Canberra Times. 'Freehold' is an Australian family saga stretching between the 1840s and the present day. The book is about the contrast between European and indigenous identification with land and the conflict this causes between and within both groups over one and a half centuries.
In a country where many people are only one or two generations away from family farms (migrants included). land ownership is an issue which is still often fiercely debated. This book will have reverberations for many.
