In a mining camp bunkhouse in the remote north-west of Australia each man's past, unlike the ground outside, is better left undug. Daring to ask where to but never where from, eight men act out their separate kinds of struggle with separate expectations of their common plight. Behind the nicknames and a claustrophobic routine punctuated by ruinous gambling, sporadic punch-ups, clever verbal batterings and the long-awaited arrival of the caravans of whores, each man harbours his own unspeakable story...' (cover).