The Fierce Country

The Fierce Country holds no malice, but neither pity. It just sits, and bakes, and waits. We do the rest. We provoke it when we mine above its aquifers. Weaken it, and ourselves, when we leave mountains of asbestos to blow away in the wind. Misunderstand it when we see it as nothing more than a resource. Resent it when it takes our children.

The open spaces and isolated places outside Australia's cities have unsettled us from first European settlement to today - often with very good reason.

In this nail-biting book combining the notorious and little-known, acclaimed author Stephen Orr has collected true stories that have shaped and continue to haunt the Australian psyche: mysteries, disappearances, mistreatment and murder.

Fatal conflicts between an Aboriginal tracker and the police employers hunting his community. An itinerant conman picking up tips for the perfect murder from a famous novelist around a campfire on the Rabbit-Proof Fence. And that fateful day when Peter Falconio pulled over beside a desert highway.

Together these tales chart an undercurrent of shifting cultural tensions as Australians find, lose and question who we are.

'I recommend this book for students of Australian history, for readers of non-fiction, for readers of murder and mystery stories, for anyone who just enjoys a good collection of short stories.'

Helen Eddy -- ReadPlus

'True stories of children lost in the bush, and the imaginative embellishments of them, constitute one of the core bodies of Australian narrative since European settlement. This has, and -continues to be, "the country of lost children". It also might be described as "the land of -unmarked graves". In The Fierce Country, an episodic gathering of "true stories from Australia's unsettled heart, 1830 to today", novelist Stephen Orr takes his title from Douglas Stewart's poem The Birdsville Track: "Three hundred miles from Birdsville to Marree / Man makes his mark across a fierce country." Or vanishes without trace.' -- Weekend Australian

Stephen Orr was born in Adelaide in 1967, studied science and education and taught in a range of country and metropolitan schools. One of his early plays, Attempts to Draw Jesus, became his first novel, shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel's Literary Award. Since then he has published ten novels (most recently, Sincerely, Ethel Malley) and two volumes of short stories (Datsunland and The Boy in Time). He has been nominated for awards such as the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Miles Franklin Award and the International Dublin Literary Award.

The Fierce Country holds no malice, but neither pity. It just sits, and bakes, and waits. We do the rest. We provoke it when we mine above its aquifers. Weaken it, and ourselves, when we leave mountains of asbestos to blow away in the wind. Misunderstand it when we see it as nothing more than a resource. Resent it when it takes our children. The open spaces and isolated places outside Australia's cities have unsettled us from first European settlement to today - often with very good reason. In this nail-biting book combining the notorious and little-known, acclaimed author Stephen Orr has collected true stories that have shaped and continue to haunt the Australian psyche: mysteries, disappearances, mistreatment and murder. Fatal conflicts between an Aboriginal tracker and the police employers hunting his community. An itinerant conman picking up tips for the perfect murder from a famous novelist around a campfire on the Rabbit-Proof Fence. And that fateful day when Peter Falconio pulled over beside a desert highway. Together these tales chart an undercurrent of shifting cultural tensions as Australians find, lose and question who we are.

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