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FICTION
THE
CRYING PLACE
After years of travelling, Saul is trying to settle down. But one night
he receives the devastating news of the death of his oldest friend, Jed,
recently returned from working in a remote Aboriginal community.
Sauls discovery in Jeds belongings of a photo of a woman convinces
him that she may hold the answers to Jeds fate. So he heads out on
a journey into the heart of the Australian desert to find the truth,
setting in motion a powerful story about the landscapes that shape
us and the ghosts that lay their claim.
LIA
HI L L S
In the rear vision, the road was golden and straight and even,
its length making sense of the sky, of the vast black cloud that
was set to engulf it. I pulled over and got out. Stared at it,
this gleaming snake where Id been, where it was going.
The route that Jed had once taken.
LIA HILLS
THE
CRYING
PLACE
brave and devastating
CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS
an impressive novel
ALEX MILLER
The author claims no ownership over any Aboriginal cultural material referenced in the novel, including
language. Every effort has been made to ensure that, at the time of publication, information in this book
pertaining to Aboriginal cultural references is correct and permission has been sought where applicable.
Please contact the publisher with any concerns.
First published in 2017
Copyright Lia Hills 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational
purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has
given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Every effort has been made to trace the holders of copyright material. If you have any information
concerning copyright material in this book, please contact the publishers at the address below.
The publishers wish to acknowledge the following copyright holders for permission to reproduce material
in this book:
From Selected Poems by Gwen Harwood
Copyright John Harwood 2001
First published by Halcyon Press 2001
Reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd.
From Voss by Patrick White
Copyright Patrick White 1957
Reprinted by kind permission.
From Collected Poems by Judith Wright
Copyright Judith Wright
Reprinted by kind permission of HarperCollins Publishers Australia.
The lines of text from One Land, One Law, One People by George Tinamin appear in Spirit Song:
ACollection of Aboriginal Poetry (Omnibus Books: Norwood, South Australia, 1993).
Allen & Unwin
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C009448
Lia Hills
Lia Hills
the Grand Ergs of the Sahara, their dunes like the waves of an
inland sea. But like so many of my generation, Id travelled the
world without ever placing a foot in the sands that lay at the
centre of my own country. Never questioned why it was once
referred to as the Dead Heart.
But Im getting ahead of myself, trying to give the slip to that
old belief: that the end of a story is encoded in its beginning.
Sometimes I wish it had been laid out like a songline, etched
into my cognitive mapping of the world so that it would not
be possible to stray from it. I wish for that degree of certainty.
But this is the story of a whitefella a piranpa in the language of
the Pitjantjatjara full of wandering and, at least at the outset,
the belief that all you need is the right question.
Unlike Thaddeus tale of the mourning caps, this one opens
at the edge of the continent, not its centre. In Sydney, acity
pressed against the Pacific, an ocean tamed as much as any great
expanse can be by words like beach and surf and lifeguard and a
deep nostalgia for summer holidays. Acity like so many of this
coast-hugging nation that has relocated its foreshore, adotted
line of plaques at Circular Quay proof of where the original
tidemark once lapped, the sails of the tall ships evolved into
architecture.
Surrounded by safer sands.
The only white caps in sight the ones lifted by the wind
across the surface of the bay.
tjukurpa
story; Dreaming; Law; message; birthmark
Pitjantjatjara language, Western Desert
Lia Hills
Lia Hills
edge of the Derwent, the wind off the river tugging at the
flames of a fire lit to give some kind of focus to the beach party,
the silver sky with only a few scraggly gum trees for a frame.
Behind us, the water bellyached while Jed, half tanked already,
held forth with some argument about the forms submission
could take in the world, agroup hanging off his words with
the earnestness of the pissed. His eyes were squally as all hell,
his blond hair harried by the wind. Scratching his throat as
if trying to peel back the skin, hed urged with the f lair for
aphorism that surfaced when he drank, You have to understand
the ways of the river.
My mobile rang again.
I put it down.
Saw my mothers name appear on the screen like a
cautionarytale.
I needed to ring someone. Tell them what had happened.
Someone who didnt know yet, for who it wasnt yet true.
But who? Ella had known him pretty well. In the eighteen
months we were together, she met Jed several times, said we
were like a couple of old war heroes when we got together,
always mythologising the past. But over the last year or so, since
shed moved up to Cairns with that restaurant guy, Ellas emails
had gone from sparse to seasonal to non-existent. People from
back home most of them were ancient history or elsewhere,
their lives, their loves, no longer aligned with mine.
No, there was only one person Id call at a moment like this,
and that was no longer possible.
I picked up my mobile and scrolled through my messages
to the last one Id had from Jed.
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Lia Hills
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