'The Blue Plateau is a lyrical exploration of a classic Australian landscape - the Blue Mountains - and its people, and the story of one man's journey to find home.
'The book's evocative narrative follows the author's attempt to settle in this difficult terrain, yet The Blue Plateau is a book of many stories. Through the fascinating characters the author meets, he traces the history of the Blue Mountains over decades, and beautifully describes the incredible connection between the people and the land.
Written in a time of drought, The Blue Plateau captures the essence of an iconic Australian place and its inhabitants, and reconnects us with this amazing land we live in.' (Publisher's blurb)
Epigraph:
I am what is around me ...
These are merely instances.
- Wallace Stevens, 'Theory'
'No one likes erosion anymore ... now that all the scenery is made.'
- James Galvin, Fencing the Sky
'Nature writing has never been more popular. In recent years it has become an international publishing phenomenon, with titles such as Helen Macdonald's 'H is for Hawk' (Jonathan Cape, 2014), Robert Macfarlane's 'Landmarks' (Hamish Hamilton, 2015), Amy Liptrot's 'The Outrun' (Canongate, 2016) and Sy Montgomery's 'How to be a Good Creature' (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018) scoring significant worldwide success. Australia, too, has its own rich history of nature writing. For more than a century, nature writing was 'the' primary literature for writing the country; a vital part of the ongoing process, for settler-Australians, of coming to feel at home in what were initially unfamiliar environments, and of creating a sense of national identity around them. Yet, today, nature writing is not widely known or understood here, and it's apparent that more Australians have read 'H is for Hawk' (18,000 copies sold so far according to Bookscan) than any of our own contemporary works.' (Publication abstract)