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Mateship With Birds

3.06 of 5 stars 3.06 · rating details · 145 ratings · 54 reviews

On the outskirts of an Australian country town in the 1950s, a lonely farmer trains his binoculars on a family of kookaburras that roost in a tree near his house. Harry observes the kookaburras through a year of feast, famine, birth, death, war, romance and song. As Harry watches the birds, his next door neighbour has her own set of binoculars trained on him. Ardent, hard-...more

Paperback, 208 pages

Published February 1st 2012 by PanMacmillan Australia

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Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist

16th out of 20 books — 13 voters

Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser

The Stella Prize 2013

5th out of 6 books — 2 voters

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May 07, 2012 Barbara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Mateship with Birds: by Carrie Tiffany. This is a book beautifully written which evokes perfectly and unsentimentally life in the repressed 1950s in Victoria, Australia. The play on words "Mateship" and "Birds" was obvious from the beginning and the interwoven stories of Harry and Betty, and the kookaburras was masterful. There were scenes that I preferred not to read about involving Mues and I skipped over these because they made me feel very uncomfortable. The style of the diary of the kookabu...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Lisa Nicholls rated it 2 of 5 stars

Tiffany managed to create an interesting mix of characters and raised some interesting ideas, however this book to me felt like a jumbled together collection of short stories that reached no real engrossing conclusion. The tension in the novel was commendable, however the overall plot seemed lacking and not once did I feel engrossed or connected to any one of the characters.
The themes of sexual maturity and immaturity weave throughout the book constantly, mostly in a disturbing fashion. Persona...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Rhoda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

The title of this book has double meanings for an Australian reader - both "mateship" and "birds" have dual meanings, so I had an idea of what the content would be before I started it. I wasn't wrong! Harry's attempts to educate Michael in the birds and the bees were very clumsy and amusing (although Michael's mother wasn't amused!).

I loved how this book really captured country life in Australia and that it mentioned towns that I'm familiar with. The journal that Harry keeps about the kookaburra...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Julia rated it 4 of 5 stars

When a book comes along about cows, dairy farming, frustrated desire and falling in love, I have to say I'm reading up a storm. The cows ( Enid, Fatty, Babs, Big Joyce, Wee Joyce, Stumbles and the rest) and the pasture, figure as intensely as the birds that Harry writes about , and I find myself longing to subscribe to the Victorian Dairy Farmer's Weekly...life on a farm in the '50's was about applied science, but no amount of science can help Harry in the seduction of his hard-working and singl...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Moses Kilolo rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book started so well, with its lyrical prose and clarity, that I thought I would devour it in a single seating. I appreciate the attention to detail, and the fact that it made me feel (though weird feelings, I should say). Carrie Tiffany describes the human body like nothing I have ever read. Even the act of sex itself comes under sharply observed details, albeit calm, sweet and ultimately quite sensual. I wonder what I would have done if I was still an adolescent. I'd hate to think of my h...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century, australia

Mateship with Birds is a clever title for this book. While’ bird’ can mean both the winged variety and in slang, a sexually attractive woman, ’mateship’ draws on dual meanings too: mating - finding a mate, courtship rituals and mating for life; and also the Australian notion of mateship – meaning a special kind of friendship: laconic, but loyal: an indivisible, enduring bond between equals. In an Australian bush town in the 1950s, the wooing of a woman is more complex than the instinctive courts...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Tara Calaby rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, rural-fiction, adult-fiction, review-copy, sex, animals, child-abuse-themes, animal-abuse, family, poetry, used-to-own

Mateship with Birds is a lyrical, calm novel set in rural Australia. There is a strong contrast between the beauty of Carrie Tiffany's writing style and much of the content of the book. The elegance of her prose, along with the regular insertion of blank verse, serves to emphasise the harshness of life in the country and the mortality of beasts. Here, humans are unmistakably shown to be animals themselves. The mating and family life of the kookaburras that Harry watches mirrors the slow courtshi...more Mateship with Birds is a lyrical, calm novel set in rural Australia. There is a strong contrast between the beauty of Carrie Tiffany's writing style and much of the content of the book. The elegance of her prose, along with the regular insertion of blank verse, serves to emphasise the harshness of life in the country and the mortality of beasts. Here, humans are unmistakably shown to be animals themselves. The mating and family life of the kookaburras that Harry watches mirrors the slow courtship between him and Betty, and between Betty's son Michael and his girlfriend Dora. Likewise, the deaths of the men that Betty looks after at the local nursing home are spoken of in the same perfunctory manner as the deaths of the birds that Little Hazel's class looks after at school. It is a comparison that should possibly feel confronting. Instead, it is simple and natural – in keeping with the flow of words and time over the book's pages.

An interesting stylistic choice with Mateship with Birds was made with the decision to include multiple sections of blank verse. These sections focus on the life of a family of kookaburras, rather than that of the forming family of Harry and the Reynoldses. Other sections of the novel are devoted to Harry's reminiscences about his early experiences with sex and sexuality, in the form of letters he writes to Michael – his clumsy (and sometimes inaccurate) attempts at educating the boy about the mechanics of sex and the curiosities of the female body.

There is a distance to Tiffany's style that results in a similar distance between the reader and her characters. While I was sympathetic to Harry, Betty and her children, I felt a lot like I was observing them from afar, much as Harry observes his birds. This degree of removal, however, does not adversely affect the more unpleasant events and descriptions within the text, which retain the power to produce feelings of sadness or disgust. The four most difficult scenes all centre upon the one peripheral character – Mues – leading me to tense at the mere mention of him by very early in the book.

I think, in some ways, I am too sensitive a reader for books like Mateship with Birds. There is a bleakness here that I struggled with, and the constant tide of animal death is something that never sits well with me. The novel also contains an incident involving sexual abuse (via exposure) of a child, along with animal abuse (including bestiality). For these reasons, I would hesitate to recommend this work widely. It's a book for readers to consider on a personal basis. The language is lovely, but the content may prove too gritty for many people.

Mateship with Birds is artfully written and a very strong work of Australian literary writing. While its content was not always in line with my reading preferences, Tiffany's use of language was a delight to experience.

(Warning: contains scenes that readers may find upsetting, as detailed above)

You can find more of my reviews at taracalaby.com

I received this book through the Goodreads First Reads program. (less)

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Mar 24, 2013 Barbara rated it 4 of 5 stars

There is something beautiful, innocent and evocative about "Mateship With Birds", but, if as a reader you are looking for some bucolic view of life on the edges of a small country town in the 1950s, then this is not for you, for there is brutality, rawness, sexual yearnings and fumblings, and death, here too.

Here is a book that meanders easily between the lives of its central players and the birds that are both part of the rural landscape, but also part of their lives, for, as Harry at one time...more

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May 09, 2013 Jennifer (JC-S) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: australian-womens-writers-challenge, librarybooks

‘And adults are part of this pretence – they hold one thing in their hand and call it another.’

It’s 1953, and just outside the small country town of Cohuna in adjacent farmhouses live Harry and Betty. Harry is a dairy farmer and keen birdwatcher, tending his cows in accordance with the rhythms of milking and breeding. Harry was once married, but his wife left him for another birdwatcher. He wonders what went wrong. Betty, the woman next door, is bringing up two children on her own. Betty works a...more ‘And adults are part of this pretence – they hold one thing in their hand and call it another.’

It’s 1953, and just outside the small country town of Cohuna in adjacent farmhouses live Harry and Betty. Harry is a dairy farmer and keen birdwatcher, tending his cows in accordance with the rhythms of milking and breeding. Harry was once married, but his wife left him for another birdwatcher. He wonders what went wrong. Betty, the woman next door, is bringing up two children on her own. Betty works at the aged-care centre in town, worries about her children (Michael and Hazel) and imagines a physical relationship with Harry. Harry is something of a father figure for Michael and Hazel, and when he realises how confused Michael is about ‘things with girls’ he writes to Michael about the things he wished he’d known at the same age. Perhaps, if Harry had known more about sex, been both less ignorant and less eager, his wife wouldn’t have left him. Perhaps. Unfortunately, Harry hasn’t spoken with Betty before writing these letters for Michael.

‘Time, in Harry’s understanding is measured in the body. It has something to do with the lungs and the taking in and expelling of air.’

Much of this novel is about records: Harry’s bird watching diary; Betty’s record of her children’s illnesses; Hazel’s nature diary and Harry’s letters to Michael. Harry, the pragmatic farmer, is poetic. Hazel is observant and matter of fact, while Michael is walking the difficult path of adolescence. Betty would like more from life, but isn’t quite sure how to proceed.

In this novel, the natural world is both character and backdrop. Beauty and routine, the mundane and the tragic are all part of life experienced by Betty and Harry. Michael is trying to make sense of his own place in a world which always looks different when adolescence kicks in and Hazel is both observant and resilient. The natural world applies to humans as well as to animals and birds. Well of course it does, but it isn’t always as clearly integrated as it is here.

‘What is the fixative that causes one memory to congeal and set, while others dissolve?’

I enjoyed this novel. It is quietly different and beautifully written. It was recently announced (on 17 April 2013) as the inaugural winner of the Stella Prize 2013.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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May 13, 2013 Jane rated it 2 of 5 stars

The winner of the inaugural Stella Prize for women writers, this is a very well-written novel and I enjoyed reading about the Victorian countryside as well as Harry's 'bird diary' which was not unlike blank verse. The title is a clever play on words, being both the name of a real bird watching book and also a nod to the friendship between two of the characters. The story is set in the repressive 1950s and involves two neighbours: Harry, a dairy farmer who lives alone, and Betty a single mother w...more

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May 20, 2013 Eloise rated it 4 of 5 stars

A wonderfully earthy and spacious read. Tiffany has pieced together fragments of family, farming, survival and desire into a delicious collage. The language is muscular and sensory. The character portraits come together rather like a bird nest becoming more defined with the placement of each found object collected exactly for that purpose. The physical relationship between the land, the animals and their humans is at times enchanting and at others totally shocking. The nature diaries, the letter...more

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May 19, 2013 Julie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Mateship : friendship & sexual relations
Birds : feathered variety & female variety

As Aussie as they come, the setting was well constructed. It breathed life into a rural landscape in the 50's. The characters were also believably written, with observations of human behaviour as accurate as Harry's observations of the birds.

There were parts I thoroughly enjoyed : Hazel's nature diary, the school dance, the field study of the birds, the development of the relationship between Harry and Bett...more

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May 21, 2013 Kirat Kaur rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A disappointing read, especially after glowing reviews, a Stella Prize and a Miles Franklin shortlist.

The novel does have its moments, especially in Tiffany's descriptions of the rural Australian landscape and when she's speaking from inside her characters. But it had a very 'creative writing class' feel to it. I especially disliked Harry's bird journal entries; Tiffany really seemed to be stretching an attempt at poetic metaphors there.

Crikey's Bethanie Blanchard puts its best, when she says th...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Jocelyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is beautifully written, with interesting, believable characters, although they are given as sketches or impressions, rather than detailed portraits. I loved the parallel nature diaries. I found the central secret disturbing. Partly because of its potentially disastrous inappropriateness, which gave a good tension to the book but I found it hard to believe the character would go so far, and partly because it was sometimes so erotic - it made me uncomfortable, feeling that it verged on pornog...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Jen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: australian

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 31, 2012 Mandy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am a Carrie Tiffany fan, went to hear/see her at the Writers Festival. This is a wonderful little book. Her writing is succinct but absolutely dripping with atmosphere and a sense of place.
Set in rural Victoria, it is about sex, middle-age, longing, memories and generosity and it is also about sex, adolescence, family and the future. All the way through are Harry's observations and notes on birds which are delightful. It makes a terrific comparison with Gillian Mears' "Foal's Bread", the chara...more

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May 05, 2013 Alexandra Daw rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm afraid I must be a cultural cretin because I didn't enjoy this book at all. I was really hoping to do so. I just ended up feeling that the characters had lived too long in the country and too closely with animals for their own mental health. Very dark. Too dark...even for me. But I'm happy to discuss and be enlightened. Let me know what you thought. I liked the cover design. And I know that sounds facile but I do like it. At least it's one good thing I can say about the book. That and that's...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Steve lovell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Although I possess a tome giving name to the copious array of birds that populate my island, I am no amateur ornithologist. Naturally the more common species that abound around my riverside abode – black swan, kookaburra, pelican, blue wren as well as the uninspiring starling and sparrow – are known, as is the majestic sea eagle that occasionally soars down the valley. The rich variety of water fowl present on the Derwent elude recognition though, as are a mystery to me the brightly plumed stand...more Although I possess a tome giving name to the copious array of birds that populate my island, I am no amateur ornithologist. Naturally the more common species that abound around my riverside abode – black swan, kookaburra, pelican, blue wren as well as the uninspiring starling and sparrow – are known, as is the majestic sea eagle that occasionally soars down the valley. The rich variety of water fowl present on the Derwent elude recognition though, as are a mystery to me the brightly plumed standouts that flit and trill in the nearby shrubbery. The shenanigans of the turbo chooks on the front lawn are a constant delight, but I am no twitcher, as is Harry, the character central to Tiffany’s rich new novel, ‘Mateship With Birds’. He knows the nomenclature of all his feathered friends, can identify calls and keeps a journal of the rituals of a kookaburra family living on his dairy farm. He is also very friendly with his cows.
I seem immersed in the 1950s these days. My previous read was set in that period in the UK, and I am currently addicted to Mad Men. This work, in contrast, has an Aussie setting, and one can practically smell the Brylcream emanating from the pages such is the authority with which the author captures the times.
Harry, widower, lives in close proximity to Betty, single mum. A lustful, unconsummated intimacy exists between the two friends, and Harry is father figure to Betty’s daughter Little Hazel, and more particularly her son, teenage Michael. At first the book is a series of vignettes outlining bucolic daily happenings and personal histories, taking its time to settle into a more linear narrative. We have Harry’s journal, Hazel’s school nature diary and an account of a neighbour’s unnatural practices providing some hilarity to otherwise somber events. It is when Harry takes it into his head to provide a written road map to the enchantments of the female sexual organs with instruction how to titillate them for Michael’s elucidation that the novel takes off. This idiosyncratic guide is surprisingly original in its approach to sexual functionality, but serves to fray the settled relationship between the two adult protagonists. Then comes the unexpected, to this reader, climax – puns intended – that is the final joy of the work.
Tiffany received hearty praise and some gongs for her first effort, ‘Rules for Scientific Living’, and this sophomore work does no harm to her career prospects. And, for someone like me who remembers the fifties, if not like yesterday, but fairly well, then 'Mateship with Birds’ brings back a time when life was more bland, perhaps less fraught, but when reticence and propriety loomed larger – with those natural urges still difficult to ignore.
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May 26, 2012 Mish rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, australian-authors, own, 2012-aww-challenge, fiction, 2012

I was really excited to have won this book after hearing from a friend how much she enjoyed the Carrie Tiffany previous book ‘Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living’. Unfortunately this didn’t work for me.

This story is about the relationship between neighbours, Harry and Betty, and life in a small country town of Victoria in the 1950’s. Harry is a middle aged bachelor - if he’s not attending to his dairy farm, he spends most of his free time journal writing, poetry, and bird observation. Harry l...more

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Apr 14, 2012 Sally rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, way-too-much-sex, australian, farm

I nearly gave this a two, because I at least finished it without skimming too much (thank you to Tara for pointing out that I'd need to skip pages 44-46 and 77-79!), but the thing is? I really didn't enjoy it. And I rate based on enjoyment, and there was zero enjoyment here. I either disliked or was entirely indifferent to every single page - although at times, near the start, I quite liked the writing. I thought, well at least it has that going for it. But not enough for me to give it any more...more I nearly gave this a two, because I at least finished it without skimming too much (thank you to Tara for pointing out that I'd need to skip pages 44-46 and 77-79!), but the thing is? I really didn't enjoy it. And I rate based on enjoyment, and there was zero enjoyment here. I either disliked or was entirely indifferent to every single page - although at times, near the start, I quite liked the writing. I thought, well at least it has that going for it. But not enough for me to give it any more than a 1. I have no real idea of what the point was meant to be. I finished the last page and was like, oh... that's it? *shrug* There was just... nothing. And often I like those lazy, gentle books where nothing really happens, you're just watching a bit of time in someone's life. But this one just wasn't even interesting enough for that. Not even the setting could do it for me! Most of the time it wasn't richly Australian enough to get me in from at least that angle.

I also skipped all the poems. So sue me. I read the first two lines of the first one and my eyes glazed over.

REALLY not my cup of tea. If I hadn't won this, I would never have chosen to read it of my own accord. And if a copy had still wound up in my lap, for any other reason than I'd won it, I doubt I'd have made it past those first 30 or so pages. I just wasn't made to care about any of the characters enough. I also really didn't like how 'rough' it was a lot of the time, if that makes sense. This is a book which calls a spade a spade. And sometimes, you need to call a spade a spade. But sometimes it just becomes TOO MUCH and after 500 spades you're all, geez, isn't there a nicer word for it?! I found the language way too crude on many occasions, and a lot of the time the crudeness felt gratuitous. You don't need to explain and describe every little thing. It felt like too obvious a ploy, I guess. Trying to shock or something. The result is that now I'm done reading, I feel like I need to have a shower to scrub the book away from me. Ick.(less)

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May 06, 2013 Bree T rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, australian, aww2013, prize-winner

It’s the 1950′s in country Australia and Harry lives on a dairy farm, looking after his girls (cows) and watching the birds that live on his farm, particularly a family of kookaburras. He watches them go through the seasons, expanding their little family and suffering their losses.

Next door to Harry lives single mother Betty and her two children, Michael and Little Hazel. Betty keeps a fond eye on Harry, but has refrained from making any moves on him. She is pleased that her son Michael spends t...more It’s the 1950′s in country Australia and Harry lives on a dairy farm, looking after his girls (cows) and watching the birds that live on his farm, particularly a family of kookaburras. He watches them go through the seasons, expanding their little family and suffering their losses.

Next door to Harry lives single mother Betty and her two children, Michael and Little Hazel. Betty keeps a fond eye on Harry, but has refrained from making any moves on him. She is pleased that her son Michael spends time over at Harry’s farm, helping with the milking and learning from the farmer. They are almost a family of two houses until Betty discovers that Harry has taken it upon himself to teach a growing Michael about the facts of life and matters of the opposite sex.

Mateship With Birds is Carrie Tiffany’s second novel and was published last year to critical acclaim. That acclaim has carried over into 2013 as this novel was longlisted, shortlisted and then won the inaugural Stella Prize for women and has been longlisted for the Miles Franklin and also the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize). I won it last year in a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads and it’s always been in my TBR pile but it wasn’t until it won the Stella that I moved it to the top of the list.

Firstly, this book is about sex. Not a lot of actual sex but thinking about sex, reflecting on experiences, writing about sex, talking about sex, informing about sex. There’s some child abuse, some bestiality and a fair bit of masturbation. I’ve heard it described as overtly crude and disgusting and I was told that I wouldn’t like it. My husband (who has read her first novel) read this a couple of weeks ago and I asked him if there was a lot of sex in it. He shrugged and said kind of, but it’s all talk. It isn’t like those books you read with the ‘artistic’ covers that I know are really just soft porn.

Okay then.

So it was with a little trepidation that I approached this one – to be honest, I have a terrible record with books that are “prize winners”. But some bloggers that I know and enjoy have really sung this one’s praises and so I was determined to give it a go. And I wasn’t particularly bothered by the sexual references – in fact I think I was almost impressed by how many times Carrie Tiffany managed to get in sexual references or references to people performing bodily functions (and on one occasion, with someone watching) in such a slender novel.

I quite enjoyed a lot of the characterisation in this novel, particularly Harry. He strikes me as quite a stereotypical Aussie country farmer on the outside, a solitary sort of man who watched one woman walk away from him and their quiet but demanding life on the farm. His days revolve around early morning milking, fixing fences, keeping everything on the farm top notch. But he’s also quietly reflective, deeply thoughtful. He spends a large amount of time observing the birds and also puts his thoughts about them down on paper in the form of poetry which definitely breaks the stereotype. I liked that he took it upon himself to try and teach Michael about maturing and puberty because no one taught him and he found himself clueless and struggling. Michael doesn’t have a father in his life so you can see how it might be difficult for him to find out that information. However… his methods of teaching are perhaps a bit out there and not merely just informative. They’re elaborate, flowery and when Betty inadvertently comes across a letter Harry has written for Michael as part of his ‘education’ it’s not such a stretch to see that she might take the wrong idea.

Likewise I liked Betty as well – this is the 1950′s so divorce isn’t common place and Betty is a single mother but it’s never quite stated how she came to be one. She works in an aged care home looking after men who can’t look after themselves and seems to go about her job with the same sort of quiet dedication and determination that she does her life, admiring Harry from afar and simply making the best of her circumstances.

I have to admit, I did feel somewhat unsatisfied with the ending. The book was a series of events or interactions but I feel as though I must’ve skipped one because from one scene to the last, things did change and I’m not quite sure what happened. Did I like this book? To be honest, I don’t know the answer to that either. I didn’t dislike it and it was certainly not a book I ever contemplated not finishing. It was very easy to get through it (although I did skim over some of Harry’s longer poetic homages to his kookaburras). It left me feeling like I wanted a little bit more, like I had failed to grasp the entire meaning – like someone had torn some pages out of my book before I read it. I guess my record with prizewinners continues!(less)

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May 20, 2013 George rated it 3 of 5 stars

Set in the early 1950s in an Australian country town. It is more a sketch of a two young children, their sole parent mother Betty and their neighbour, Harry, with lots of descriptions of the nature around the district, focussing of kookaburra birds. The writing style is simple and very evocative. The plot is fairly thin with one of the main issues being the beginnings of sexual awareness and the question of how much information to give to young people.

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Apr 13, 2013 Kimbofo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: commonwealth-fiction

Carrie Tiffany's second novel, Mateship with Birds, has been nominated for numerous prizes, including the Stella Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. I chose to read it on the strength of her debut novel, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living, which was published in 2005.

The story is set in rural Australia in the 1950s. It's a character-driven novel about two lonely people — Harry, a dairy farmer whose wife ran off with another man, and Betty, a single mot...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Alison O'keefe rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would have given this 3.5 stars if it was an option. I liked this story, but thought it didn't really go anywhere. The romance that started to develop was sweet and nice - but the complication was flat and underwhelming. I found the language use to be very ugly and blunt in many places - not romanticised at all, which gave it a certain feel that was maintained for the whole book which was good. It was a good book with some strong characters, also Australian which was nice.

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Feb 16, 2012 Jo rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, paperback-and-hardcover, romance, fiction-general

I normally like aussie country stories however I found this book too disjointed to even really get into the story. The writing style felt scatty and I was distracted by the constant jumping from idea to idea.

Whilst the story was mostly ok I was not comfortable with some of the content and felt it detracted rather than added to the story. One good thing was the 'poetry like' musings of the lead about the family of kookaburras, this I found very amusing.

A very quick read, thanks FirstReads giveaw...more

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May 11, 2013 Blair rated it 3 of 5 stars

Winner of the inaugural Stella Prize this year and short listed for the Miles Franklin, this book didn't entirely win me over. It's quite nicely done as a character study of rural sexual frustration in 1950s Victoria, but it felt slight and inconsequential. Maybe that's because it was following Middlemarch, but it didn't feel innovative or important. I think Tiffany's first novel had a bit more going on in it.

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May 01, 2013 John Bartlett rated it 3 of 5 stars

The prose in this book was elegant and poetic. I was however disappointed by the lack of plot and narrative movement.
It felt like the story was just treading water for much of the time.I didn't find th poetic observations particulalry effective but this book has just won the Stel;la award, perhaps forthe quality of the writing alone but surely there has to be more.

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May 05, 2012 Rachel Beaver rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book in about 4 hrs, & thought it a very nothing story. Didn't think it was one that warranted telling. The writing style was very matter of fact, but with clear descriptions. I thought the pseudo-family structure worked well, & didn't understand Betty's anger. I'll just consider this book a space filler between other more interesting stories...

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May 02, 2013 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars

I cannot believe this author won an award for this book!! I was extremely disappointed with it. It felt like a Tarantino film - starts in one spot and veers unexpectedly and unbelievably in another direction. The plot twist was thoroughly implausible and felt like it was just put there for shock value. A major disappointment after a good start.

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Aug 28, 2012 Esthee rated it 1 of 5 stars

For me this book could have been really beautiful had it not been so crude. If the story was rather a study on rural life without the child and animal cruelty and crude sex it could have been so much more. The language, rhythm and poetry was there. But it felt like watching porn being dressed up as shakespeare. In the end its still just porn.

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About Carrie Tiffany

English-born Australian author. Born in 1965, she emigrated to Australia with her family in the early 70s and grew up in Perth, WA. Carrie Tiffany spent her early twenties working as a park ranger in the Red Centre and now lives in Melbourne, where she works as an agricultural journalist.

More about Carrie Tiffany...

Books by Carrie Tiffany

The BBC International Short Story Award 2012

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Mateship With Birds

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