Dimensions
155 x 234 x 26mm
Life on the land is a study in contrasts: shadow and light, abundance and blight, the transcendent moment eroded by the persistence of time. And it's against this backdrop, in the shearing sheds of Eureka Station, across the sweeping hills and lagoons of the Flint district and the fleeting camaraderie of the Five Alls pub, that men play out their fates, conduct their affairs and hope for the best.
Major Dunc Buckler, 'misplaced genius, authentic ratbag', scours the landscape for tools in a World War that will never find him. Kingsley Colts, Buckler's ward and boarding-school reprobate, looks for a new start in the great inland. Wayne Hovell, war veteran and steward to 'moral duty', carries the physical and emotional scars of Kingsley's early rebellion, but also finds himself the keeper of Kingsley's redemption. Normie Powell, son of a rugby-playing minister, finds his own mysticism in nature's panoply, while warm-hearted but befuddled stock dealer Alan Hooke longs for understanding in a house full of women. They are men with a past, shaped by the obligations and expectations of a previous generation, all striving to define themselves in their own language, on their own terms. Made in Australia, written in Roger McDonald's inimitably rich and piercingly observant style, charts the ebb and flow of human fortune, and our fraught desire to leave an indelible mark on society and those closest to us. It shows how loyalties shape us in the most unexpected ways. It's the story of how men 'strike at beauty' as they fall to the earth.
