AustLit

'On February 7, 2009, following 12 years of drought, and on a day when temperatures soared to 45 degrees, bushfires burned across the state of Victoria. The fires, of unprecedented ferocity, killed 173 people, injured hundreds more, and a million animals perished in the flames as well. The fires reduced 3500 buildings, 2000 of them people’s homes, to char and rubble. One of the worst-affected areas was Central Gippsland, where the fire began in a eucalypt plantation outside the town of Churchill and burned through 26,000 hectares.'  (Introduction)

'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)

'“Dan dropped dead on the sand and that was that.” In the first sentence of the first story in this very enjoyable new collection, Robert Drewe establishes the sea as a place of both death and sly comedy. There is a hoary literary convention of the sea as metaphor; you might even say it has been overfished for allegory. Yet with his narrative inventiveness, and the deft combination of a light touch and dark sensibility, Drewe offers a fresh perspective on oceanic themes – freedom, cleansing and renewal along with their obverse of entrapment, muck and danger. Playful undercurrents and perilous rips of eroticism run through these tales. The sea is a moody and sensuous beast.' (Introduction)

'Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia is a mosaic, its more than 50 tiles –  short personal essays with unique patterns, shapes, colours and textures – coming together to form a powerful portrait of resilience. Some contributors, such as footballer Adam Goodes and opera singer Deborah Cheetham, are well known, others less so. Editor Anita Heiss has also included the stories of educators, journalists, military veterans, musicians, elders and students, many of whom are here published for the first time. Some had happy childhoods and others nightmarish ones, some grew up in their own families and others were stolen from them. They describe different paths to Aboriginal identity against the background of a nation that has yet to come fully to grips with a legacy of massacre, dispossession and persistent racism.' (Introduction)

'It’s the late 1960s in the small town of Hometown, Victoria. People gather at the pub to watch Bellbird and Pick a Box, or drop in at the butcher shop of “Juicy” Collins for a gossip. Winds of change may be sweeping through places such as Melbourne and Sydney, but Hometown has yet to feel more than a ripple.' (Introduction)

'This is a book as multifaceted as its subject. It’s a meticulously put-together biography of a fastidiously groomed woman whose business it is to clean up after murder, suicide and hoarding messes. It’s a wondrous portrait of an inspiring character who has been, at various times in her life, the wife of a respectable man, the devoted lover of another, a rape survivor, a sex worker and drag queen with a pregnant girlfriend, a husband and father and a sadistically abused young boy. It’s an eloquent discourse on trauma, pain and ways of coping, or not. It’s a history of the law and policing in Victoria with regard to its LGBTQI community. It’s a jigsaw puzzle with some pieces missing, some permanently disordered and others willed into creation. It’s the frequently surprising and sometimes funny story of a potty-mouthed transgender businesswoman and long-time Liberal Party supporter.' (Introduction)

'A self-described “lanky, shaggy D-list” celebrity and dandy who strives to be Noël Coward but fears he is Steptoe, Tim Rogers, lead singer of You Am I, reveals that these days the “swagger” in his walk comes from two knee reconstructions. “This is who I am, take it or leave it. A middle-aged man without much more going on than a deep thirst.”' (Introduction)