Red in the Centre

". . . a book that will help Australia better understand itself." Charles Wooley Book One in the series, inspired by radio interviews collected on round-Australia jaunt for a national broadcaster; stories mostly light and bright with an amusing "innocent abroad" feel.

"He views life with a Jack Nicholson like, quizzical overview, a Why is this thus? disdain." Ted Egan Entertaining account of Monte struggling to come to grips with Sunrise, technology and a newly-acquired 4WD bus determined to kill him. Monte's amusing transition from mainstream television to freelance multimedia something-or-other; stories edgier and more chaotic than the first book, a touch of restrained madness here.

"...he is ultimately an entertainer, and he writes to delight." Peter FitzSimons Beautifully rounded stories from some little-known regions of Australia.

Darwin longgrassers have been living large since the beginning. They come from all over the Territory to camp in the public spaces around town, to catch up with family and friends, attend health and legal matters, holiday and shop, and drink. Especially drink. And the whitefellas don't like it. They think they're noisy and dirty and rude. So, they try to move them on. For 150 years they've been trying to move them on. But the longgrassers won't go. Yet beneath this running battle between the settled and the free lurks an undeniable truth about colonisation that is almost Newtonian in style. This is a story of resilience and denial against outrageous odds, an underdog's triumph of survival in the modern world, for a people who just refuse to give in Contains Culturally Sensitive Material.