'Living aboard neighbouring boats in a
crowded marina, Col, Baxter and Jackie are middle-aged fringe-dwellers.
Each of them nurses secret wounds and anxieties, and although their
vessels are ocean-going craft, none seems likely to ever leave the safe
confines of the harbour. They are hiding from the world behind and
beyond.
On Australia Day, drunk, lost and
angry, a young English backpacker called Dee turns up on the jetty and
her arrival unleashes chaos. Suddenly no secret is safe, nothing is
fixed. As the nation celebrates, the cosy fantasy of safety from the
past is blown open in a funny, bitter torrent of loose talk.' (Publisher's blurb)
