Visceral writing

Sarah Hay’s new novel is set in north-western Australia against a background of intense heat and bone-hard country, a continent away from the grim southern island setting of her previous novel, Skins (2001). Although this second novel by the Vogel-winning author explores a very different place and time, the two novels share some common terrain. Both unfold in remote locations where conditions of survival are harsh; both explore themes of loneliness, will, desire and the impact of colonisation.

Texas is told from the point of view of two women. Susannah, wife of the newly appointed station manager, is still mourning her mother. Laura, the young English girl who takes a job as a jillaroo, has realised a childhood dream to work in the Australian outback. Hay alternates these two perspectives, shifting between places, memories and events to reveal her story. The novel opens with Susannah’s arrival at the Kimberley cattle station where her husband is the newly appointed manager: ‘She spread the camping mattresses out on the timber floor of the sleep-out, away from the bad smells of the kitchen and the dark musty bedrooms where each doorway was barred by the thin invisible lines of a spider’s web.’