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Book Review
Apr. 21st, 2025 06:46 pmDirt Music
by Tim Winton
This novel is set on the coast of Western Australia, largely in a fictional rough and tumble fishing town called White Point. There Georgie Jutland has lived for three years as the partner and housewife to Jim Buckridge, a very successful fisherman, unspoken leader and enforcer of the town, and man with darkness and violence in his past. Georgie does not quite fit in to White Point, and is starting to feel restless and like her relationship with Jim may be winding down. Luther Fox is an illegal fisherman, basically a maritime poacher. The Fox clan had been a free-living group of musicians until a car crash killed all of them except Luther. He now lives alone in the family farm house, only going out to poach and sell fish, mired in grief and regret. When Luther and Georgie have a chance encounter, they strike up something of a friendship, something of an affair. It's dangerous, but also brings each of them out of their respective emotional ruts.
Dirt Music is a bit spare of plot, but long on evocations of the landscape and explorations of character. I could really feel the sun and smell the dry salt air. I could also feel Georgie's restlessness and emotional loose ends, as well as Luther's haze of grief and loss. The thread throughout the novel is how Georgie and Luther rescue each other from the dead ends they find themselves in, and Winton beautifully makes this metaphoric rescuing literal at the end.
by Tim Winton
This novel is set on the coast of Western Australia, largely in a fictional rough and tumble fishing town called White Point. There Georgie Jutland has lived for three years as the partner and housewife to Jim Buckridge, a very successful fisherman, unspoken leader and enforcer of the town, and man with darkness and violence in his past. Georgie does not quite fit in to White Point, and is starting to feel restless and like her relationship with Jim may be winding down. Luther Fox is an illegal fisherman, basically a maritime poacher. The Fox clan had been a free-living group of musicians until a car crash killed all of them except Luther. He now lives alone in the family farm house, only going out to poach and sell fish, mired in grief and regret. When Luther and Georgie have a chance encounter, they strike up something of a friendship, something of an affair. It's dangerous, but also brings each of them out of their respective emotional ruts.
Dirt Music is a bit spare of plot, but long on evocations of the landscape and explorations of character. I could really feel the sun and smell the dry salt air. I could also feel Georgie's restlessness and emotional loose ends, as well as Luther's haze of grief and loss. The thread throughout the novel is how Georgie and Luther rescue each other from the dead ends they find themselves in, and Winton beautifully makes this metaphoric rescuing literal at the end.
