Other People's Country: One Woman's Journey from Suburban Housewife to Remote Area Nurse

When comfortable housewife and mother of six adult children, Maureen Helen reached her late fifties, she decided she wanted to do something a little different.

Spurred on by an adventure in Thailand, she decides to use her rusty skills to become a RAN: a remote area nurse, in an isolated Aboriginal settlement in WA's Pilbara region.

Faced with the terrible health problems of the community, inadequate equipment and a growing sense that she doesn't belong, Maureen battles her own crisis of confidence as well as the harshness and hostility of her environment.

Other People's Country is an elegantly written examination of the unexpected consequences of one woman's wish to do good. This finely judged piece of writing offers penetrating insights into the cultural clash between Aboriginal and white Australia, as well as taking a cool look at the narrator's own moral compass when faced with a demanding and hostile environment.