Marian couldn't see the woman's eyes behind her glasses, and was filled with panic. That bosom was not for comfort. Not for Marian. She, Marian, was here so that this woman, this psychologist, could expose her failure to be a proper mother.
Marian Anditon's life is shattered by an action of her son's. As the days pass she is haunted by layers of grief that rise up around her like the salt of the degraded earth.
Marian's everyday heroism, her earthy humour and innate honesty, sustain her as she confronts her own tragedy and sees beyond it to other moral ambiguities of white Australian life - racism, environmental damage.
This novel has its roots in an ancient landscape - the dry farming country around Koikyennuruff (the Stirling Ranges) in the south of Western Australian. It is the story of a journey from the country to the city and back again, the journey of a week that will change Marian's life forever.