In this brilliant debut novel, Alexis Wright evokes city and outback, deepening our understanding of human ambition and failure, and making the timeless heart and soul of this country pulsate on the page. Black and white cultures collide in a thousand ways as Aboriginal spirituality clashes with the complex brutality of colonisation at St Dominic's mission. With her political awareness raised by work with the city-based Aboriginal Coalition, Mary visits the old mission in the northern Gulf country, place of her mother's and grand-mother's suffering. Mary's return re-ignites community anxieties, and the Council of Elders again turn to their spirit world.

Alexis Wright’s award-winning classic Carpentaria: “a swelling, heaving tsunami of a novel—stinging, sinuous, salted with outrageous humor, sweetened by spiraling lyricism” (The Australian) Carpentaria is an epic of the Gulf country of northwestern Queensland, Australia. Its portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centers on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight’s renegade Eastend mob, on the one hand, and with the white officials of Uptown and the nearby rapacious, ecologically disastrous Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright’s masterful novel teems with extraordinary characters—the outcast savior Elias Smith, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist Will Phantom, and above all, the rulers of the family, the queen of the garbage dump and the fish-embalming king of time: Angel Day and Normal Phantom—who stand like giants in a storm-swept world. Wright’s storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. She has a narrative gift for remaking reality itself, altering along her way, as if casually, the perception of what a novel can do with the inside of the reader's mind. Carpentaria is “an epic, exhilarating, unsettling novel” (Wall Street Journal) that is not to be missed.

Originally published: Australia: Giramondo, 2013.

"Four novels of love in frontier forts" -- cover.

Land of Bright Promise is a fascinating exploration of the multitude of land promotions and types of advertising that attracted more than 175,000 settlers to the Panhandle-South Plains area of Texas from the late years of the nineteenth century to the early years of the twentieth. Shunned by settlers for decades because of its popular but forbidding image as a desert filled with desperados, savage Indians, and solitary ranchers, the region was seen as an agricultural and cultural wasteland. The territory, consequently, was among the last to be settled in the United States. But from 1890 to 1917, land companies and agents competed to attract new settlers to the plains. To this end, the combined efforts of local residents, ranchers and landowners, railroads, and professional real estate agents were utilized. Through brochures, lectures, articles, letters, fairs, and excursion trips, midwestern farmers were encouraged to find new homes on what was once feared as the "Great American Desert." And successful indeed were these efforts: from 13,787 in 1890, the population grew to 193,371 in 1920 with a corresponding increase in the amount of farms and farm acreage. The book looks at the imagination, enthusiasm, and determination of land promoters as they approached their task, including their special advertisements and displays to show the potential of the area. Treating the important roles of the cattlemen, the railroads, the professional land companies, and local boosters, Land of Bright Promise also focuses on the intentions and expectations of the settlers themselves. Of special interest are the 15 historical photographs and reproductions of promotional pieces from the era used to spur theland boom. What emerges is an engaging look at a critical period in the development of the Texas Panhandle and an overview of the shift from cattle to agriculture as primary industry in the area.

""Former gunfighter Cortland Enders is about to go to prison when the woman he works for invents a scheme to save him. Sienna Harris, widowed owner of the Circle H, makes a deal with the judge-Cort will serve his three-year sentence running the ranch, bound to it as her new husband. The marriage is in name only, enabling Sienna to leave the ranch to Cort after she dies of the cancer thats consuming her. Getting Cort to accept the deal proves more difficult. Some years back, Siennas first husband, Wade, gave the young gunslinger a place at the Circle H to soothe his tormented soul. Cort owes Wade Harris a debt and agrees only after Sienna plays on his loyalty to them both. Lark Garrin is on the run from a vicious outlaw, Will Cardin. Needing a place to hide, she ends up in Ogallala, at a "ribbon dance" for women seeking husbands. Cort is dispatched to this dance at Siennas request. He isnt looking for a wife but needs to find his wife a companion. Tempers flare when Lark discovers Cort is already married, until Sienna explains her duties. Accepting Corts protection is Larks salvation, until Cardin gets close and she flees again. Overcoming impossible odds, Cort uses his skills as a tracker and gunfighter to find her and set her free. Set on the frontier during turbulent times, this story carries its gritty and prideful characters through tragedy and mistakes, as they fulfill an imperfect promise"-"--

Experience the hidden byways of America's prairies, steppes, and grasslands through the unerring eye of landscape photographer and educator David Skernick. Covering Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, these unforgettable panoramic images place the viewer directly into our country's vast interior, containing wild bison, longhorn cattle, freight trains, abandoned homesteads, and agricultural patterns with startling geometries. The journey also passes through parts of the iconic Route 66 that most travelers never see. Skernick, who leads photography workshops nationwide, lets us in on his camera strategies, with an appendix listing exposure, equipment, and panorama statistics for each image--enough to satisfy even the most technology-minded photographer.