Dirt Music

“Dirt music," Fox tells Georgie, "is anything you can play on a verandah or porch, without electricity.”

...and it is from this short conversation that the book takes its title.

Set in small town Western Australia - a fictional town, called White Point, where the industry is fishing, and the people are hard working rural folk - this is a gritty novel. The people of white Point are called White Pointers - obvious but clever, in a fishing town. The machinations of small town Australia, a patriarchal family, who hold the imbalance of power for no reason other than they own a lot of the land and are successful and wealthy. Jim Buckridge, inheriting that power from his father, and now the others look up to him, look to him for guidance and to take the lead. But it is Georgie, his girlfriend, who is the enigmatic lead character - seemingly so unsure of her own motivations, and similarly unsure how disconnected from her family she is. That is, Georgie and Luther Fox, the poacher - both enigmatic and complicated.

The blurb gives a good rundown of the plot, better than I would explain.

The characters are damaged. The characters have past history they are reluctant to share, history that effects their thinking and their actions, and that effect their relationships. These characters, like real people are complicated. They are each looking for redemption.

However it is in the setting of the scene, in describing this small town, the sea, the scenery where Winton spends much of his time, and when the story moves north to a new setting, he does the same. It is with great depth he describes things - often to the detriment of the storyline, but it is enticing nevertheless.

It is an interesting part of Australia, the West. I spent some time there, living in Perth briefly, looking for work, at a time it was hard to come by. In the end I took a job on a remote cattle station, four months of isolation with ‘interesting characters', but not necessarily people you would choose to spend that time with. I didn't make my way to a coastal fishing town, or to a remote north-western coastline, which was the second setting of this novel. I would love to have found a way to the second, much more than the first.

I ripped through this novel, reading it in a day and a half. Partly because I have a slight cold, and was not welcome in the office in this time of covid panic (not that we have the virus loose in NZ, only in our returning citizens, who go into isolation), but partly due to its appeal. I did find it hard to put down, and for me it was 4 stars worth. Tim Winton is not an author I am familiar with, so I was luck to have been gifted a copy.

4**