This is the first of this Australian novelist’s books I have read, another author from my ‘to read’ list. Tim Winton has written more than ten books for adults and children and was short listed for the 1995 Booker Prize with his novel The Riders. That year’s prize was one by Pat Barker for her superlative World War One drama The Ghost Road, beating both Winton and Salman Rushdie.
Winton’s Dirt Music is a tale of love, loss and redemption set against the beautiful but harsh Western Australian landscape. Luther Fox is an abalone poacher retreating into his own world following the death of his whole family in a freak car accident. Georgie Jutland is the headstrong, former nurse trying to fit into the world of hard working, hard drinking fishermen in the tiny fictional town of White Point. The locals affectionately call themselves ‘White Pointers’ and Georgie spends a lot of her time avoiding the vicious bites they can inflict to a ‘blow-in’ at even the slightest provocation.
The book is a widescreen evocation of life in a remote Australian town, where the line between survival and death is very narrow indeed. Winton draws a very convincing set of portraits of musicians, fishermen, survivors.
To set the mood read this and listen to Western Australian band The Triffids album ‘Born Sandy Devotional’.
If you like this book you might like to try these authors here:
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