Outback noir

Who should we celebrate, or perhaps fault, for the publishing success of books labelled ‘outback noir’ in Australia over the past decade? Our starting point could be Jane Harper’s bestselling book The Dry (2016). The cornerstone of the genre for the author of The Leap, Paul Daley, is the seminal Kenneth Cook novel, Wake in Fright, first published in 1961. The longevity of the novel owes much to the 1971 feature film of the same name, directed by Ted Kotcheff, remembered for the infamous filming of a visceral Kangaroo shoot and the actor Donald Pleasence playing a most unpleasant lech. The Wolf Creek film franchise also deserves an honourable mention, along with its larrikin psychopathic killer, Mick Taylor, if not the real-life mass murderer, Ivan Milat himself.

The cover of this novel indicates that the reader is about to turn the pages of this now popular genre, outback noir; a big open sky, red earth, a rocky outcrop, and a silhouetted figure holding a gun. To drive home the point, a tagline appearing under the over-endowed font of The Leap tells us that ‘They’re watching’. While there may be cultural and symbolic similarities between Daley’s novel and outback noir, his is not a crime novel as such. The Leap is a study of aspects of Australian rural life, examined through great storytelling, masterful character studies, and the stain of colonial violence that haunts the present day.