AustLit

'When South African Jewish academic Hayley Katzen moves to a remote Australian cattle property to live with her farmer girlfriend, she hopes, at last, to find home.

'But this is no happy-ever-after tree change. Lecture halls, law reform and the arts are replaced with castrating calves, shovelling manure, fire-fighting and anti-gas blockades. In a place that attracts people who live by their own rules, Hayley must confront her limitations and preconceptions to forge her own identity.

'Set in the unpredictable beauty of the Australian landscape, and told with Hayley Katzen's compelling candour and rigour, Untethered charts one migrant's search for home. Part love story and part off-the-grid adventure, Untethered is a powerful reminder that home can be found in many forms - in love, in family and friends, in ideologies and political movements, in landscapes and communities, and ultimately, in ourselves.' (Publication summary)

'On Saturday 15 March 2014, my stepmother Genee was shot twice in her bed in Johannesburg. No. That’s misleading: ‘was shot’ suggests she might still be alive. Genee died on 15 March 2014.

'No. That’s misleading too. Without the other detail, ‘died’ suggests she was old and had a heart attack or stroke. Natural causes, if such things still exist.'  (Introduction)