Tide
November 2013
John Kinsella / Transit Lounge
Taking a break from being our nation’s most prolific poet, John Kinsella has authored a collection of short stories charting life experiences (mostly of growing up) in regional Western Australia. Full of that sense of adventure and limitlessness that vast expanses of land and ocean inspire in dreaming children, these tales are a beautiful collection of snapshots, full of dry humour; salt and sweeping winds; wheat silos; wide open roads; beaches that edge the always treacherous, alluring sea; tides, waves and electrical storms; the mystery of adult behaviour; loneliness, lust and confusion. In many, flashes of colour and surreal incident – a rose bouquet, a wandering child, the blood dripping from a sudden wound – light up the dun surrounds. Written in a direct, compelling demotic that seemingly rises from the land itself, from ‘place’, these stories are small masterpieces, little gems cut from life; new narratives that have grown from an adopted land and stake claims to belonging. Difficult to pick favourites, but ‘A Long Stretch of Nothing in the Middle of Nowhere’ with its intense dread and mystery, and a killer (and utterly Australian) final sentence is an absolute highlight.