Books like Drylands
In a dying town in the Queensland outback, Janet Deakin, who runs the newsagency, writes a novel about her neighbours, and their stories of cruelty and leaving fill the book.
Explore books like this on the map12 books for readers of Drylands
Wake in Fright
John Grant, a bonded schoolteacher in a tiny outback town, stops overnight in the mining town of Bundanyabba on his way to Sydney for the holidays, loses his money at two-up and can't get out.
The Casual Vacancy
When parish councillor Barry Fairbrother dies suddenly in his forties, his empty seat sets off a war in the pretty English town of Pagford, where rich and poor, parents and teenagers, are each hiding something.
The Glass Canoe
Life inside the Southern Cross, a working-class pub in Sydney, told in short episodes by Meat Man, one of its regulars.
The Getting of Wisdom
Laura Rambotham, a clever, awkward girl from the country, is sent to a Melbourne ladies' college and learns to lie in order to fit in.
Valentine
In Odessa, Texas, in 1976, at the height of an oil boom, Gloria Ramírez, a fourteen-year-old Mexican-American girl, is brutally attacked by a young oil worker, and the next morning she reaches the door of Mary Rose Whitehead's ranch house.
To the Islands
Heriot, an ageing missionary on a mission in the far north-west of Western Australia, believes he has killed a man in a rage, and walks out into the wilderness with an Aboriginal companion, Justin, towards the islands of the dead.
Shallows
In Angelus, a West Australian whaling town in its last season, Queenie Cookson joins the protesters against the whalers, while her husband Cleve reads the journals of her great-grandfather.
In Evil Hour
In a small Colombian town under a military mayor, anonymous lampoons start appearing on doors overnight, exposing the residents' secrets, and one of them leads to a killing.
Too Much Lip
Kerry Salter, a Bundjalung woman on a stolen motorbike with warrants out, comes home to northern New South Wales to farewell her dying grandfather, and finds the mayor planning a prison on sacred land.
The Broken Shore
Joe Cashin, a Melbourne homicide detective recovering from injuries, takes a posting back in his home town on the south-west coast of Victoria, and a rich old man is bashed in his home.
The Well
Hester Harper, a lonely middle-aged farmer's daughter, takes in Katherine, an orphan girl, and driving home one night they hit something on the road and drop it down the well.
The Women at the Pump
In a small Norwegian coastal town, the gossip at the pump follows Oliver, a sailor who came home crippled, and everyone else whose business is everyone's business.