The White Earth

About this book

Praise for The White Earth: "Tremendous narrative skill . . . a lean intelligent and incisive novel."-The Sydney Morning Herald "These characters . . . could have stepped from the pages of a Dickens novel. . . . At one level a suspenseful gothic thriller. At another its a national allegory with its portent that past wrongs will come back to haunt future generations."-The Age "A powerful work filled with passion and a kind of surreal grandiosity. . . . A truly compelling story. . . . It reverberates long after its been finished."-The New Zealand Herald When young Williams ineffectual father is killed in an accidental fire he is cast upon the charity of an unknown great-uncle John McIvor. The bitter childless old man had been brought up to expect to marry the heiress to Kuran Station-a grand estate in the Australian Outback-only to be disappointed by his rejection and the subsequent selling off of the land. His life has been devoted to putting the estate back together; he has only recently partially succeeded and moved into the disintegrating once-elegant mansion Kuran House. McIvor tries to imbue William with his obsession for the land. He enlists him to work in a crackpot political party he is active in whose policy is to thwart the Aborigines attempts to recover ancestral territory. For recently passed laws entitle the native peoples to reclaim certain sacred sites. Williams mother desperately wants her son to ingratiate himself so that he will become John McIvors heir. But what no one knows because neither his uncle nor his mother actually ever see him is that William is ill and his condition is gradually worsening.