Well anyway

the long version

Stivens's story is set in Mygarlie, a small town in the central west of New South Wales. The energy and immediacy of his narrative drives a violent domestic drama to its shocking climax. Every event, every defining detail, is reported by one or other of its small cast of characters. The publican, the farmer, the blustering businessman are familiar for their time and place, but the members of the family on which the entire action turns are all brilliantly realised in their unique, fractured and destructive lives. At the very heart of this small town tragedy is Jem, the ten-year-old boy who is both an observer and a victim of the novel's action ..