The Fierce Country

True Stories from Australia's Unsettled Heart, 1830 to Today

Stephen Orr

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Paperback

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English

Wakefield Press
28 June 2018

True crime; History

The Fierce Country holds no malice, but neither pity. It just sits, and bakes, and waits. We do the rest. We provoke it when we mine above its aquifers. Weaken it, and ourselves, when we leave mountains of asbestos to blow away in the wind. Misunderstand it when we see it as nothing more than a resource. Resent it when it takes our children.

The open spaces and isolated places outside Australia's cities have unsettled us from first European settlement to today - often with very good reason.

In this nail-biting book combining the notorious and little-known, acclaimed author Stephen Orr has collected true stories that have shaped and continue to haunt the Australian psyche: mysteries, disappearances, mistreatment and murder.

Fatal conflicts between an Aboriginal tracker and the police employers hunting his community. An itinerant conman picking up tips for the perfect murder from a famous novelist around a campfire on the Rabbit-Proof Fence. And that fateful day when Peter Falconio pulled over beside a desert highway.

Together these tales chart an undercurrent of shifting cultural tensions as Australians find, lose and question who we are.

By: Stephen Orr
Imprint: Wakefield Press
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 140mm,
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9781743055748
ISBN 10: 1743055749
Publication Date: 28 June 2018
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for The Fierce Country: True Stories from Australia's Unsettled Heart, 1830 to Today

"'I recommend this book for students of Australian history, for readers of non-fiction, for readers of murder and mystery stories, for anyone who just enjoys a good collection of short stories.' Helen Eddy -- ReadPlus 'True stories of children lost in the bush, and the imaginative embellishments of them, constitute one of the core bodies of Australian narrative since European settlement. This has, and -continues to be, ""the country of lost children"". It also might be described as ""the land of -unmarked graves"". In The Fierce Country, an episodic gathering of ""true stories from Australia's unsettled heart, 1830 to today"", novelist Stephen Orr takes his title from Douglas Stewart's poem The Birdsville Track: ""Three hundred miles from Birdsville to Marree / Man makes his mark across a fierce country."" Or vanishes without trace.' -- Weekend Australian"