Dirt Music : A Novel

The plot is something else altogether: an elegantly wearied, cleverly finessed mutual odyssey that opts to follow the sometimes intertwining, sometimes diverging lives of poor Georgie and Luther as they try to deal with the odd alliance they comprise, as well as the complex and fractured lives they want to leave behind. The way Georgie deals with her unwitting inheritance of two dissatisfied adopted kids is particularly touching, poignant, and well written.

Best of all, though, is the prose. Somehow it manages to be simultaneously juicy and dry, like a desert cactus. This is especially true when Winton touches on the scented harshness of the Down Under outback: "the music is jagged and pushy and he for one just doesn't want to bloody hear it, but the outbursts of strings and piano are as austere and unconsoling as the pindan plain out there with its spindly acacia and red soil." This is a wise and accomplished novel. --Sean Thomas, Amazon.co.uk

Product Description

Set in the dramatic landscape of Western Australia, Dirt Music tells the story of Luther Fox, a broken man who makes his living as an illegal fisherman -- a shamateur. Before everyone in his family was killed in a freak rollover, Fox grew melons and counted stars and loved playing his guitar. Now, his life has become a "project of forgetting." Not until he meets Georgie Jutland, the wife of White Point's most prosperous fisherman, does Fox begin to dream again and hear the dirt music -- "anything you can play on a verandah or porch," he tells Georgie, "without electricity." Like the beat of a barren heart, nature is never silent. Ambitious and perfectly calibrated, Dirt Music resonates with suspense, emotion, and timeless truths.

Download Description
Luther Fox, a loner, haunted by his past, makes his living as an illegal fisherman - a shamateur. Before everyone in his family was killed in a freak rollover, he grew melons and played guitar in the family band. Robbed of all that, he has turned his back on music. There's too much emotion in it, too much memory and pain. One morning Fox is observed poaching by Georgie Jutland. Chance, or a kind of willed recklessness, has brought Georgie into the life and home of Jim Buckridge, the most prosperous fisherman in the area and a man who loathes poachers, Fox above all. But she's never fully settled into Jim's grand house on the water or into the inbred community with its history of violent secrets. After Georgie encounters Fox, her tentative hold on conventional life is severed. Neither of them would call it love, but they can't stay away from each other no matter how dangerous it is - and out on White Point it is very dangerous. Set in the dramatic landscape of Western Australia, Dirt Music is a love story about people stifled by grief and regret; a novel about the odds of breaking with the past and about the lure of music. Dirt music, Fox tells Georgie, is "anything you can play on a verandah or porch, without electricity." Even in the wild, Luther cannot escape it. There is, he discovers, no silence in nature. Ambitious, perfectly calibrated, Dirt Music resonates with suspense and supercharged emotion -- and it confirms Tim Winton's status as the preeminent Australian novelist of his generation. "

Through the bleak landscape of Western Australia, we learn that protagonists also have weaknesses and the 'bad' guys also have their own reasons to behave the way they do. This is the reason why I can identify with the characters and understand the way they behave. Having lived in Australia for some years also makes me recognize the 'aussieness' of this novel - it seeps through every sentence that is written: how the locals are afraid of the Asian invasion; how men are suppposed to be men; and many more little themes that are included within the novel. The book is also seasoned with Australian cheekiness and humour which makes it a delight to read - however, that doesn't mean that the book is a trivial read. Tim Winton brings us to scenes and makes us breathe in the surrounding, stand and witness whatever that is happening in the following pages.

I heartily recommend this book to those who want to visit Western Australia, and to read how each character deals with the ghosts of their past. A great read - full stop.


A Gem that Doesn't Hold the Light   June 16, 2002
11 out of 14 found this review helpful

Tim Winton has an indisputable gift for language; seldom will you find more cleverly turned phrases or richer metaphors and similes, but "Dirt Music" is ultimately too opaque and self-indulgent. The language remains rich, but the story loses its way and the last 100 pages seem more the ramblings of a sunstruck psychedelic than an eloquent writer with a compelling story to tell. Most of the action takes place in the close-knit Western Australia fishing village of White Point, which is populated by characters who have a spiritual kinship to a dozen of Steinbeck's. Georgie Jutland, a well-traveled, well-worn forty-something ex-nurse from a dysfunctional family, is adrift in a brackish pool of indecision about her life and which man she wants to devote it to. Jim Buckridge, a stoic, widowed father of two young sons, stands tall and straight among them-a master fisherman and a strong, silent type who Georgie pities more than loves. Luther (Lu) Fox is a poacher of the first water whose crippled psyche draws Georgie like cat hair to a black sweater. But the Foxes are outcasts in this rough and tumble community while the Buckridges are its respected pillars. When the inevitable triangle forms, Lu is victimized in a particularly cruel way and Georgie is cast into a limbo darker than any she's ever known. Lu departs and Georgie's live-in relationship with Jim and his boys is flayed and filleted. Winton's long description of Lu's journey then not only leads the story off the beaten track, but off the track altogether. After forty or fifty pages of that, I no longer cared what happened to any of the characters.


Good style, good descriptions, lovely poetry, but...   November 22, 2002
Isabell Kazich (Perth, Western Australia)
10 out of 16 found this review helpful

I had to struggle through the last half of the book. Tim Winton is undoubtedly a good writer, I have to admit and that's why I gave his novel two stars. It also took him seven years to write this, so you have to acknowledge the work he put into it.
The author is well-read (and doesn't hide it),knows a lot about music and knows the Australian wilderness like no other. But in my opinion the main problem with this novel is that the plot is boring and devoid of surprises (except at the end, but I won't comment on that). The characters are a bit artificial, especially the nurse (I am a nurse too and can't identify at all with the way she's haunted by a former patient...). There's a lot that doesn't seem right in this book. There seems to be no logic in the characters' actions or feelings. I'm sorry I didn't like it; maybe I just didn't understand it... Maybe you have to be in a dark, cold, rainy place to appreciate it and dream about a holiday in Australia.