Wresting his family from the easy living of 19th-century Sydney, Cornelius Laffey takes them to northern Queensland where thousands of hopefuls are digging for gold in the mud. They confront the horror of Aboriginal dispossession,...

A powerful tale of a small town destinies shaped by violence, debts and disappointments. From one of Australia's most respected and acclaimed novelists.

Leverson, the narrator at the centre of these stories, calls himself a 'people freak'. Seduced by north Queensland's sultry beauty and unique strangeness, he is as fascinated by the invading hordes of misfits from the south as by...