In the summer of 1981 Will Traverse set out to walk across the city of Brisbane; a journey that took him from an Aboriginal bora ground in the Samford valley west of the city, through the city centre, and on to a midden on Stradbroke Island.
At that time Brisbane, a small city under the yoke of an ultra-conservative state government, was transitioning from what many called that great big country town into what would become the two-hundred-kilometre city. Wills journey, through time and space, maps a unique portrait of a city and its people during this time of change.
Along the way he met many characters, including the last Samford dairy farmer and his dog, a woman who told him things shed held secret for too long, and an American soldier whod been stationed in Brisbane during the Pacific Campaign. There were many strange encounters, including a drunken game of racing peanuts, a conversation with six cane toads, and monsters in the night.
As he walked Will sometimes recalled events from his own past. Sometimes these memories were pleasant, some bitter-sweet, but there was one, concerning a visit to a place of evil, that haunted him.
عن المؤلف
Ian Hamilton is an Australian visual artist and writer. Meanjin Crossing, his first novel, brings the artist’s eye and sense of place to this depiction of life in two distinct phases of the human history of the Brisbane region.
For other writings see HYPERLINK “http://users.adam.com.
au/ijhamilton”