Dirt Music

Set at the turn of this century in a West Australian fishing village with a rugged history, Dirt Music gives us life lived upside down and backwards, and for a while it isn't easy to decide who we ought to sympathize with. Georgie Jutland, a burnt out nurse, has a bit of a history herself, but has tentatively settled in with widower Jim Buckridge, a successful commercial fisherman, and his two young sons. His past is mostly a mystery to her, although his reputation for revenge-oriented violence is no secret. His marriage and his wife's death are taboo subjects. Soon she becomes drawn into the life of Luther Fox, an unlicensed "shamateur" fisherman flirting with disaster by poaching abalone and lobsters. Buckridge and Fox are destined to show more be rivals for Georgie as well as for their marine quarry, but each will face a far more complex personal struggle to come to grips with himself. Their stories are layered and mingled beautifully, leading to a resolution that you won't see coming from very far away. Winton's writing is brilliant. Sentence after sentence, even whole paragraphs, demand to be re-read, not for their sense, but for their beauty and force. Dirt Music is a symphony. show less

What do you do when your luck runs out?

Some people let their lives become a bitter search for revenge. Others decide to defy fate: "Russian bloke told me once. Said we all die. But you might as well die with music. Go out big."

Georgie Jutland has lived a chequered but adventurous life, fleeing from her family's bourgeois respectability. She's been as fearless about discarding men as she has about changing continents. But one day, she concludes that her luck has run out. She has lost the tough detachment she needed for her career as a cancer nurse. She has landed, like driftwood, in a feudalistic township in the brutal landscape of Western Australia. And without the self-confidence, her defiant brashness is starting to feel like empty show more bravado.

The man she's currently with is Jim Buckridge, a widower and the king of his lobster-fishing town. He no longer rules with vindictive violence, as he did when he was younger and as his father did before him. They do not love each other, but they have found an equilibrium, although it gives Georgie less and less of what she needs. Then one day, in a spirit of self-destructiveness, she has a sexual encounter with a local ne'er-do-well, the polar opposite of Jim and a man seen by the townsfolk as coming from a family tainted with bad luck.

This is a fantastic, complex read, about confidence, luck and coming to terms with the past. The landscape is almost a character in the book, described with lyrical beauty but inhospitable to human life. The writing is as vivid, spare and harsh as the landscape, with sentences whose significance you only realise pages later. There is real evil present in the town, but all the main characters are, to some extent, comprehensible and therefore forgiveable (not an easy call given some of the dynamics involved). show less

Dirt Music is set on the west coast of Australia, north of Perth. The main character is Georgie Jutland, rebel child of Perth's upper crust. She has traveled the world, including a stint as a nurse in Saudi Arabia, and has now been settled for a few years with Jim Buckridge, the top fisherman in White Point. Then she runs into loner Lu Fox, a poacher (the local word is shamateur) and the sole survivor of a clan of musicians who were killed in a freak auto accident. Between lyrical descriptions of the landscape and take-no-prisoners descriptions of the community, this book is worth it for the sense of place alone. The complicated characters are developed in depth (after a brief and hilarious Men-Writing-Women bit right at the beginning show more that betrays a total lack of understanding of breasts). The plot is strong and kept me guessing right up to the last line. Certain pivotal moments of action are abrupt, almost brutal, verging on silly, but in general I liked this a lot and intend to read more Tim Winton. show less

Georgie Jutland has drifted into Jim Buckridge’s life. Widowed, he is a thriving fisherman in the Australian coastal town of White Point. Her relationship with his sons is tense and she has never really settled into his home or the wider community. Georgie is looking out the window very early one morning and sees a boat slip into the water to fish illegally. Buckridge and the other residents of White Point detest poachers.

The man in the boat is Luther Fox, formerly a musician but is now a loner since his family were killed in a freak accident. These two isolated individuals are inexorably drawn together and begin an intense affair. The residents of the town are not best known for their tolerance and it is a place of violence and show more secrets. Their liaison is full of risk and if discovered the danger is immense…

I have only read one of Winton’s books before, the excellent Lands Edge which is a memoir on his life at the coast in Australia, but this was the first foray into his fiction. He has managed to write a really powerful book with some great flawed characters and a tense plot. The writing is stark and sparse, and like the outback is intense and evocative. It has a really good ending too; very cleverly done. Must read some more of his fiction soon. show less

Fishing is central to the western Australian village of White Point, driving the economy and shaping social order. Jim Buckridge is the best fisherman around, which affords him "big man on campus" status. His partner, Georgie Jutland, ended up in White Point after chucking a nursing career and a failed relationship. Their relationship is fragile: Jim mourns his first wife Debbie, who died of cancer, but he refuses to talk about it. His young sons see Georgie as the evil stepmother. Georgie stays up into the wee hours, drowning her sorrows in vodka. It's not surprising, then, when she discovers Luther Fox poaching fish in the dark of night and ends up in bed with him.

Well, OK, that was kind of surprising. The chemistry between Georgie show more and Lu wasn't well-developed, and her relationship with Jim still had life in it (that is, until she slept with Lu). But Luther was an interesting character, a man forever scarred by the sudden tragic loss of his entire family. I felt sorry for him, and wanted him to find love and happiness with Georgie. Thus Tim Winton sets up the central conflict, "what will Georgie do?" and takes the reader along on her quest. Along the way, he reveals tiny details that flesh out each man's past. What exactly happened to Luther's family? Why is Jim such a badass? Why won't he talk about Debbie, and what does he really want from Georgie? Winton also brings the Western Australian landscape to life. As someone completely unfamiliar with the geography and the flora and fauna, I kept a map close at hand and found images of animals, trees, and birds to visualize the scenery.

While Winton was successful in drawing me into the story and it held my interest, it fell short of its potential. Georgie's character could have been developed more fully. She was somewhat of a paradox: hard-edged and abrasive, but known for her caring and nursing skills. Not the least bit concerned about fashion or makeup, and yet considered sexy. It just didn't add up. Then, as the central conflict reached its climax, Winton placed his characters in a situation that struck me as far-fetched, and the resolution was just too neat to be believable. Ah, well. show less

This is my last unread book from the 2002 Man Booker shortlist, which is the topic of a current discussion in The Mookse and The Gripes group. I am also planning to read several more from that year's longlist. This for me is the weakest of the six books, but it was still an interesting read.

The story is largely set in the wilder parts of coastal Western Australia. It has three central characters and their relationship is something of a love triangle, but to portray the book in those terms would be a gross misrepresentation. It is much more about misfits and drifters and their attempts to find a place to survive in hostile terrain, which makes it more like an Australian western. All of the three main characters have secrets they are show more scarred by and hide from one another, and only at the very end is any concession made towards a happy resolution.

At the heart of the book is Georgie, a drifter who has arrived in the fishing village of White Point on a boat with an ill-equipped sailor she wants to leave. She finds a place as the partner and housekeeper of Jim, a successful local fisherman and unofficial policeman of the local community who lives in the shadow of his more violent dead father's reputation. Georgie becomes intrigued by Luther, who has been poaching fish at night and has his own past as a musician whose family have all been killed in a car crash he survived. After a brief and impossible liaison with Georgie and reprisals from the White Point rednecks, Luther takes off on a trip north with a plan to attempt to live on his wits as a fisherman on a much wilder part of the coast. Georgie begins to settle for her life with Jim, but he conceives a trip north to find Luther.

This book is full of colourful Australian vocabulary, some of which stuck (quolls, spinifex) and others which I didn't check. It is uncompromising and quite long, in fact too long to hold my interest throughout - for me it could have been edited down to something a lot more punchy, but it is still quite a memorable read. show less

Dirt Music is one of those books that gets under your skin. Comes into your bed with you; changes your dreams; travels with you throughout the mundane details of everyday life. Winton's descriptive prose works both externally in its depiction of the natural land - the sea and desert of Western Australia which makes up its setting, and internally, in the way it goes deep inside the pain and anxieties of its characters, as they struggle to free themselves from tremendous damage, and paralysis.