From
the author of the critically acclaimed, bestselling Everyman's Rules for Scientific
Living, comes a new novel of family, farming and friendship...
Rural
Victoria, post-WWII, and Harry, a lonely farmer is training his binoculars on
a family of kookaburras that roost in the tree near his house. Harry observes
the birds through a year of feast, famine, birth, death, war romance and song.
Harry's next-door neighbour, Betty, who works at the town's nursing home, also
has a pair of binoculars, trained on him. Ardent, hard-working Betty has escaped
to the country with her two fatherless children, Michael and Little Hazel. When
Michael wants to spend time with the gentle farmer next door, Betty is pleased.
But when Harry decides to teach Michael about the opposite sex, perilous boundaries
are crossed. Mateship with Birds follows the lives of Harry and Betty, set against
the backdrop of the seasons and the rough environmental conditions of rural Australia.
Harry watches and lusts after Betty while at the same time, attempting to offer
her son the sex education that he himself lacked, and when these two worlds collide,
their quiet country lives are rocked.
"…a splendidly
poised and wryly funny novel: human nature and relationships are as beautifully
observed as the rich, circadian rhythms of country life. It is clever, original
and richly rewarding." (Australian Bookseller & Publisher Magazine, Dec
2011)
Mateship with Birds combines Carrie's two passions -
the land and writing. It is a hymn to the rhythm of country life - to vicious
birds, virginal cows, adored dogs and ill-used sheep. On one small farm in a vast,
ancient landscape, a collection of misfits question the nature of what a family
can be. Carrie's first novel, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living, published
in 2005, featured agricultural scientists and idealism set on the state government's
Better Farming Train as it chugged along the Victorian countryside in the 1930s.
This first novel was shortlisted for various awards including the Orange Prize,
the Miles Franklin Literary
Award, the Guardian First Book Award and the Commonwealth
Writers Prize.
Carrie Tiffany was born in West Yorkshire and
grew up in Western Australia. She spent her early twenties working as a park ranger
in central Australia and now lives in Melbourne, where she works as an agricultural
journalist.
'Mateship with Birds' is available now.
