Tim Winton (2001) Dirt Music

Dirt Music is a disappointment. I’ll need to qualify that. I read the whole 461 pages and I wasn’t quite sure, at the end, if the plane crashed, or if Fox had hallucinated such a thing, but he’s blue and Georgie is blowing into his mouth as Jim Buckridge watches on. Dirt Music is a disappointment because it’s not Breath, Winton’s 2008 book.  It’s a simple enough plot. Georgie Jutland is forty, a nurse that no longer nurses. She lives at White Point, with the kingpin of fishermen and widower Jim Buckridge and his two young kids. She’s a stepmother by default and not sure she’s up to the job, or any job, or any kind of life. She meets Fox’s dog on the waterfront before she meets the man. So begins as they say in French a ménage-a-trois that’s a bit fucked up, because everybody feels guilty about something. It’s told from Georgie and Fox’s points of view. Interesting enough to keep the attention and some lovely scenery.