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* Contents derived from the St Lucia,Indooroopilly - St Lucia area,Brisbane - North West,Brisbane,Queensland,:University of Queensland Press,1997 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
A man clings to the memories of his adolescent first love for years until he revisits their secret hideaway. Sifting through the decayed remnants of their shared hours, he is finally able to relegate his first love to the past.
Two friends travel to Brisbane to attend a poetry reading at the home of a commmunist poet. Becoming intoxicated, they inadvertently allow themselves to be lured into a confronting situation.
An ageing, untalented musician - 'the oldest hippie' - is thrilled when he is asked to play at a high society wedding. Unaware that he has been mistaken for another musician, he thoroughly enjoys unleashing his repertoire upon the captive audience.
A young man rebels against his parents' conservatism and forms a travelling rock band. He begins to question the band's cavalier attitudes, but has not the fortitude to prevent the violation of a young groupie.
The imperiousness with which a Catholic priest treats his aged father is vividly brought to his attention when he recognises aspects of his own behaviour in an Anglican priest's appalling treatment of his wife.
A young girl's spirited attitude to life seems to contrast that of her conservative mother's. However, many years later, to her chagrin and regret, she finds her long-dead mother's influence asserting itself.
On extended leave from her teaching job, a woman in her forties accepts an offer as companion for a reclusive music teacher. Their seclusion, compounded by the monsoonal wet, provokes a contest of strength of will and purpose between them.
Bored with his routine life in a country town, a motel-owner accepts an offer to stay at an isolated shack. Whilst there, his encounters with a transient young couple prompt him to return home.
The arrival of the Laffey family among the frontier violence of Queensland's north becomes the topic of family reminiscences with a particular focus on Cornelius Laffey, a journalist, who wrote of the family's experiences and the behaviours and events they witnessed.
Following the disappearance of her husband, Jessica Olive supports her family by running a hotel. Her two boys succeed in making their own way in the world and, as Jessica ages, she makes fewer concessions to the male-dominated world in which she is bound.
An adolescent girl endures the emotional turbulence of humiliation inflicted by the nuns at her boarding school, as well as the thrill of the first innocent stirrings of attraction to a stranger she encounters at the library.
The death of an uncle facilitates a reunion between the orphaned niece and nephew he had raised. Will, scarred by his war experiences, is comforted by his sister, Connie.
Ageing Will Laffey finds he can no longer handle the task of keeping the grass on his property under control. His nephew brokers a deal with some friends to take on the task, and this leads to a new phase in Will's life.
For Aboriginal man, Billy Mumbler, life in north Queensland offers a precarious existence, particularly under the watchful eye of the law. Trying to live peacably and protect his family proves almost impossible.
Gentle and ageing Will Laffey has never been able to form a close relationship with anyone, other than his sister Connie. When he becomes enamoured of one of a group of young people he has allowed to live on his property, the youth's callous indifference and rejection is too much for Will to bear.
