The Blue Plateau: An Australian Pastoral [Paperback]

Located in the Blue Mountains southwest of Sydney, the Blue Plateau is a contrary collection of canyons and creeks, cow paddocks and eucalyptus forests, the first people and ranchers. This book reveals the plateau through its inhabitants: the Gundungurra people who were there first and still remain; the Maxwell family, who tried, but failed, to tame the land; the affable, impoverished, often drunken ranchers and firefighters; and the author himself, a poet trying to insinuate his citified self into a rugged landscape defined by drought, fire, and scarcity. Like the works of Peter Mathiessen, Barry Lopez, and William Least Heat-Moon,The Blue Plateauis a deep examination of place that transcends genre, incorporating poetry, people’s history, ecology, mythology, and memoir to reveal how humanity and nature intertwine to create a home. Elegiac and intimately composed, this vivid portrait of a rugged wilds expands readers’ sense of the place they call home.

“One of the wisest, most gifted and ingenious writers you could hope to find.”
—Michael Pollan, author ofIn Defense of FoodandThe Omnivore’s Dilemma

“Blue escarpment, floods in the bottoms, a “red steer” wild fire, logging, pasturing, sod walled homes, generations evolving and perishing—Australian writer Mark Tredinnick tells us a vivid weave of stories which add up to a story of homeland, his for some years, and along the way he illustrates the complex ways we come to a sense of place, rural or downtown. The Blue Plateau is a gift; a guide to understanding all of us, everywhere; one of those books you read slowly, so it will last, and this one will. This one will be around.”
—Bill Kittredge, author ofThe Willow FieldandThe Next Rodeo

Absorbed slowly, as a pastoral “landscape of loss” and “experiment in seeing and listening,” the book ricló¾