A few years ago, I read the debut novel by the Australian author Shaun Prescott “The Town”....
It’s strikingly vivid in its banality. A town where nothing much happens, until it suddenly does.
In an un-named town in western New South Wales a young writer turns up to write a history of the disappearing small towns of regional Australia – a theme quite common in remote towns and villages all over the country.
This town is quite unusual; in addition to being isolated and a cultural, social void (which over time seems to literally expand in a deeply strange manner), the town features a train that passes through (but never stops), a radio station that no-one listens to that plays unusual music that mysteriously turns up on cassettes with no information about its creator and a bus route that winds its way around housing estates with no residents to pick up and no passengers.
If you’re interested in reading a book with a distinctly Australian voice about the uneasy relationship that white Australians have with the interior of our continent “The Town” will likely float your boat. The book is quietly disturbing, mysterious and, in my opinion, quite original in its vision of Australia.
While The Town is written in a readable, and indeed rather dry and matter of fact though dream-like style, the ideas within are a challenge to the conventional romantic notions of the outback and a very interesting interpretation of the slow disappearance of small-town Australia, and we gradually find ourselves inexorably moving to the cities on the coast.
Borrow The Town by Shaun Prescott as an eAudio book on Borrow Box!
Here are some similar Australian books if you’d like to go to strange (fictional) places, and further examine the mysteries of the interior of our country, and the effect it might have on its inhabitants.
You could also check out:
The Plains by Gerald Murnane
Also available as an eBook Libby (Text Classics edition also available through Libby).
Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook
Also available in the Text Classics edition on Libby, stream the movie adaptation on Kanopy, or borrow the DVD!