'Hay, New South Wales, 1923. Martha, a classics scholar from the coast, comes to teach in a man's town in the outback. She falls in love with Henry, a local man, and they find their dream place on the river where they raise a family and breed a flock of sheep with fine wool. The unforgiving climate erodes their dreams. When Henry leaves, Martha takes on the outside work and learns to drive. Seven-year-old Anna is her main helper and confidante. Sustained by their shared love of this stark and beautiful country with its endless skies, red plains and silvery saltbush, mother and daughter strive - against all odds - to look after livestock and land and keep the farm going. But when Anna is away at boarding school, the place is lost forever.' (Publication summary)
'It would be unbearable to think this story should lie untold. Drawn from her mother’s personal memoir and her own memories and archives, Houen writes about their hardworking passionate lives in a Godforsaken but picturesque patch of marginal land on the banks of the Murrumbidgee in Hay, NSW. Water shortage then was a family battle and now it is a national and global one, with foreign water ownership in the Murray-Darling basin at 20.9% (Chan 2019).' (Introduction)
'It would be unbearable to think this story should lie untold. Drawn from her mother’s personal memoir and her own memories and archives, Houen writes about their hardworking passionate lives in a Godforsaken but picturesque patch of marginal land on the banks of the Murrumbidgee in Hay, NSW. Water shortage then was a family battle and now it is a national and global one, with foreign water ownership in the Murray-Darling basin at 20.9% (Chan 2019).' (Introduction)
