The sophisticated intertwining of personal development with beliefs about national identity is engrossing as a story and undermines inflexible claims to "truth" and hopes instead for a solution that gracefully accommodates all participants in Australia's progress towards unembarrassed adulthood.
Through it all breathes the ancient reality of the land: its red earth and bright air painted with the sure hand of a master.
This book is an anatomy lesson of a land and its people as they were and are, and a spritely, often amused and amusing rendering of modern mores: not just a book about identity and sense of place, but about loyalty to one's place.
