This gritty, sun drenched novel about friendship, loneliness and addiction is the winner of 2004 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award.

Diana Kooper runs from a car crash in the heart of Sydney, scarcely looking back, leaving her best friend, Nicole, slumped and bloody in the damaged vehicle.

After hitching a ride to the far west of New South Wales, Diana takes a job as a kitchenhand at Bob's, an isolated truck-stop. At first she thinks she can predict the sort of rhythm her life will follow in this dusty, diesel-driven, lonely stop but soon a series of unsettling events disturb the order of things. A dog is brutally stabbed to death and left as a warning beside one of the petrol bowsers. And when Bob rolls his ute in suspicious circumstances, Diana is left to look after the roadhouse kitchen on her own. As every-day life becomes increasingly challenging, Diana struggles with her past and with the ghosts that haunt her present.

Road Story is a remarkable novel that reveals the tenuousness of love between friends and the dark pervasiveness of addiction.

PRAISE FROM THE AUSTRALIAN/VOGEL LITERARY AWARD JUDGES

'Compelling... the truckers, their habits, their rigs and their nonchalant ferocity come at you. She opens a window into the grit and diesel fumes of road-centred lives.' - Stella Clare

'A very genuine voice with a strong sense of authenticity and a rising sense of menace.' - Liam Davison

'Raw, direct and passionate, the assurance of van Loon's novel should distract no-one from the integrity and the intelligence which give weight to it.' - James Bradley