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A review by never4get
Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller
3.0
The premise of this book, i.e. the husband's affair with a student that sparked Annabelle to head off north to where she was raised as a child, seems improbable. He is quickly forgotten in all that follows. Annabelle meets up with Bo, an aboriginal fellow she knew as a child but who was in the background at that time because they were in such different spheres. Clearly she loomed more highly in his recollection than he did in hers.
In the days and weeks where she meets up with up with him again they follow little-known trails in the outback, ostensibly to 'map' a dam for a company, but really to re-live the life that Bo was familiar with from his forbears. In this they are shadowed by a young aboriginal man, Anwer, in his van with pounding music - who seems totally disengaged by all that is going on. A younger woman too, Trace, is part of the team until she meets up with a young man, Matthew and becomes so totally absorbed by him that they go off together.
Annabelle and Bo have to come to terms with their very different backgrounds, but eventually they do become lovers - which seems satisfying for them both. However, at the end of the novel, they visit an aged aboriginal woman who has a totally vitriolic memory of Annabelle's family's involvement in wiping out the aboriginal inhabitants in that area. Specifically she recounts Annabelle's grandfather shooting the adults and killing the children with his spurs. She threatens to put a curse on Bo and Annabelle if he takes her to the Stone Country. This casts a pall over their relationship, but Bo has the attitude that people were angry because of past actions, but it is time to work together for the good of all. That is his view in trying to gain back the land lost by his grandmother.
In the days and weeks where she meets up with up with him again they follow little-known trails in the outback, ostensibly to 'map' a dam for a company, but really to re-live the life that Bo was familiar with from his forbears. In this they are shadowed by a young aboriginal man, Anwer, in his van with pounding music - who seems totally disengaged by all that is going on. A younger woman too, Trace, is part of the team until she meets up with a young man, Matthew and becomes so totally absorbed by him that they go off together.
Annabelle and Bo have to come to terms with their very different backgrounds, but eventually they do become lovers - which seems satisfying for them both. However, at the end of the novel, they visit an aged aboriginal woman who has a totally vitriolic memory of Annabelle's family's involvement in wiping out the aboriginal inhabitants in that area. Specifically she recounts Annabelle's grandfather shooting the adults and killing the children with his spurs. She threatens to put a curse on Bo and Annabelle if he takes her to the Stone Country. This casts a pall over their relationship, but Bo has the attitude that people were angry because of past actions, but it is time to work together for the good of all. That is his view in trying to gain back the land lost by his grandmother.