Drawn on Angelina’s body a great book was open, densely printed, thick as a cathedral bible. As she slept her quivering skin turned the pages. And sometimes the people illustrated in the book were recognisable. “Can you really see the future?” Heynan had once asked his wife. But in Buxworth, the past swept over the town, unruly as the hot, northerly winds of summer that carried on it soil from the dryland farms and the smell of ash from distant fires. Private and public histories had converged with the present destroying certainties and lives. A stranger had come to the small rural community: beliefs and hierarchies were undermined, and death followed.
Buxworth’s people are at once both recognisable and unanchored, caught in a place and a time between reality and illusion. Their dreams and flaws subvert the panorama of Australian country life. Their history is haunting and memorable.
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