Courtney Collins is an unashamed fan of Southern Gothic literature, and that sensibility has clearly been a decisive influence on the way she portrays her native land of Australia in the 1920s.
This is a visceral story, and the backdrop upon which it takes place isn't just harsh and unforgiving, it's also strangely alien. The people we meet here aren't at one with their landscape, not in the way that the cowboys and pioneers of the Wild West are often portrayed. Collins's characters have an edgy relationship with the outback, an unease that troubles even the wildest, most instinctive of them all.
Jessie is an expert horsewoman turned horse and cattle rustler. Having grown up in these surroundings, she's tough, hardy and only sentimental about her favourite horse, Houdini. The last time she was released from prison, she was put into the care of the sadistic rancher Fitz, and since then she's endured callous treatment, frequent rapes and a forced marriage. As the book opens, she's just murdered him and made her escape into the outback after giving premature birth to Fitz's baby, whom she buries and who omnisciently narrates the rest of the book.
She's a fugitive from justice now, with only her outdoors skills and horsemanship to rely on, and every livestock owner in the area is champing at the bit to hunt her down. Jessie's best hope for protection is her secret Aboriginal lover, Jack Brown, and Barlow, a rookie police sergeant formerly addicted to heroin. But can they find her before an angry posse does?
Inspired by the tale of Elizabeth Jessie Hinkman, a bush ranger who went rogue in the 1920s, this is a striking and remarkable debut for the first-time novelist. Not merely dark and gritty, it endows earth and blood with elemental significance, and the fact that it's narrated by a lifeless newborn baby resting comfortably under the ground – the innocent that Jessie could have been – is a constant reminder of the nearness of death, which manages to be both threatening and consoling at once.
Countless novels get their movie rights optioned, but I'd wager that The Burial stands a better chance than most of getting made.
THE BURIAL
Courtney Collins
Allen & Unwin, £12.99
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