I am not a huge Tim Winton fan, I usually find his characters to be unsympathetic, but I have always admired his creation of place. I heard him being interviewed by Claire Nicols and it sounded like something I would like. In the end, I listened to it.
Here’s the blurb …
An epic novel of determination, survival, and the limits of the human spirit. This is Tim Winton as you’ve never read him before.
Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place – middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work.
Problem is, they’re not alone.
So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.
The descriptions of the different landscapes were fabulous. I enjoyed how the story unfolded slowly and we gradually learnt what had brought our protagonist to this bleak place. It is a story for our times and might hopefully get people thinking about the environment and the impact of climate change. It is a bleak story and (without giving away spoilers) it has a ‘Winton’ ending. I can see this being made into a movie.
A review.
