AustLit

'The Year of the Farmer begins with an ominous scene of dogs running at night with “blood on their minds” towards sheep trapped in their paddocks, “innocent to the coming game”. Dogs aren’t the only predators in this darkly comic new novel by the author of The Dressmaker. As for prey, not all are sheep by any metaphorical stretch, but many are indeed trapped in their paddocks. Drought is upon the land. The farmers who haven’t already sold up can feel their creditors closing in, and the local water authority doesn’t appear to have their best interests at heart either. The river, with its uncertain flow, divides town and country in more ways than one. '  (Introduction)

'Krissy Kneen’s novels have often centred on bodies, how they morph and constrict, how they can offer transcendence or be prisons for the soul, how they merge into other shapes, beyond desire, beyond gender, beyond human. In her latest, Wintering, she continues these themes, leading to an isolated shack on the Tasmanian coast, a place where devils roam, men disappear and strange creatures are glimpsed in the twilight out of the corner of the eye.' (Introduction)