'The last few years have been punishingly dry, especially for the farmers, but otherwise, it's all Neralie Mackintosh's fault. If she'd never left town then her ex, the hapless but extremely eligible Mitchell Bishop, would never have fallen into the clutches of the truly awful Mandy, who now lords it over everyone as if she owns the place.
'So, now that Neralie has returned to run the local pub, the whole town is determined to reinstate her to her rightful position in the social order. But Mandy Bishop has other ideas. Meanwhile the head of the local water board - Glenys 'Gravedigger' Dingle - is looking for a way to line her pockets at the expense of hardworking farmers already up to their eyes in debt. And Mandy and Neralie's war may be just the chance she was looking for...' (Publisher's website)
Dedication: For the Hams, farmers all.
Epigraph:
Here is a rural fellow
That will not be denied your Highness' presence.
He brings you figs.
-William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 5, Scene 2
'The reader looking for a good yarn in a rural setting will find it here.'
'‘In time and with water, everything changes,’ according to Leonardo da Vinci, who worked with Machiavelli on a strategic and ultimately doomed attempt to channel the flow of the Arno. Large-scale water management has had some notable successes in parts of Australia, but as poor practices and climate change put river systems under near-terminal stress, we face irreversible and potentially catastrophic ecological failures. Michael Cathcart, in The Water Dreamers (2009), provides an account of this. Attempts to rectify the ecological degradation of our rivers involve expensive and possibly futile federal policies, opportunism, and the potential for suffering in farming communities. Everything may indeed change in time and with water, but changes in water practices in Australia are particularly fraught.' (Introduction)
'The Year of the Farmer begins with an ominous scene of dogs running at night with “blood on their minds” towards sheep trapped in their paddocks, “innocent to the coming game”. Dogs aren’t the only predators in this darkly comic new novel by the author of The Dressmaker. As for prey, not all are sheep by any metaphorical stretch, but many are indeed trapped in their paddocks. Drought is upon the land. The farmers who haven’t already sold up can feel their creditors closing in, and the local water authority doesn’t appear to have their best interests at heart either. The river, with its uncertain flow, divides town and country in more ways than one. ' (Introduction)
'The reader looking for a good yarn in a rural setting will find it here.'
'The Year of the Farmer begins with an ominous scene of dogs running at night with “blood on their minds” towards sheep trapped in their paddocks, “innocent to the coming game”. Dogs aren’t the only predators in this darkly comic new novel by the author of The Dressmaker. As for prey, not all are sheep by any metaphorical stretch, but many are indeed trapped in their paddocks. Drought is upon the land. The farmers who haven’t already sold up can feel their creditors closing in, and the local water authority doesn’t appear to have their best interests at heart either. The river, with its uncertain flow, divides town and country in more ways than one. ' (Introduction)
'‘In time and with water, everything changes,’ according to Leonardo da Vinci, who worked with Machiavelli on a strategic and ultimately doomed attempt to channel the flow of the Arno. Large-scale water management has had some notable successes in parts of Australia, but as poor practices and climate change put river systems under near-terminal stress, we face irreversible and potentially catastrophic ecological failures. Michael Cathcart, in The Water Dreamers (2009), provides an account of this. Attempts to rectify the ecological degradation of our rivers involve expensive and possibly futile federal policies, opportunism, and the potential for suffering in farming communities. Everything may indeed change in time and with water, but changes in water practices in Australia are particularly fraught.' (Introduction)
