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Hinterland
'We have this idea we can live anywhere, that we make a choice, but it's not true. There are places that are for you and places that aren't. You can tell which is which if you're prepared to listen.' Tensions have been slowly building in the old farming district of Winderran. Its rich landscape has attracted a new wave of urban tree-changers and wealthy developers. But traditional loyalties and values are pushed to the brink with the announcement of a controversial dam project. Locals Eugenie and Guy are forced to choose sides, while newcomer Nick discovers there are more sinister forces at work. The personal and the political soon collide in ways that will change their fates and determine the future of the town. In Hinterland, Steven Lang has created a gripping novel that captures contemporary Australia in all of its natural beauty and conflicting ambitions.
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First published July 3, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 7, 2017
Hinterland (UQP 2017) is a novel ambitious in scope and in emotion. Set in the fictional town of Winderran (a thinly-veiled clone of Maleny), in the hinterland of southern Queensland, the depiction of the landscape, the environment and the very people themselves are all clearly informed by author Steven Lang's long association with the real place: the rural farming / tree change / artists’ enclave through which most of us become familiar via day trips to cheese factories, art galleries, wineries and bushwalks. His sense of place – of the permeating grip of the light and the weather, of the sunsets and the sky, of nature at its glorious best – imbues the book with a rich and sensuous feel for the community. Winderran is a beautiful place, and that beauty echoes through every page. We can almost see the shifting palette of colour above, we can smell eucalypt and the steaming breath of cattle, we can feel the leaf litter beneath our feet and the fresh, clear water of the local swimming holes. The environment is important out here, and feelings about its preservation run deep.
And this is where the story begins. For while this is a literary novel in that it defers to the beauty of landscape and language, it also propels us forward with a compelling story of controversy, betrayal and violence. Wealthy developers plan to construct a dam to provide much-needed water relief to outlying areas, and down to the coast. But many of the locals consider the dam an ill-thought out and unnecessary white elephant. In the heated discussions and skirmishes that follow, the politics of small-town communities are spotlighted front and centre – neighbours against friends, leaders against voters, locals against ring-in environmentalists.
The story is told from the perspectives of five main characters: Miles, Nick, Eugenie, Guy and Will. Through their quite different voices we see the events unfold from very different viewpoints. Will, particularly, is written in a voice so removed from the others; his personality setting him apart. And this is what brings the characters alive – they are all so separate, not only in their patterns of speech and their habits and their circumstances, but in their motivations and their backgrounds. Which is exactly how some of these rural tree-change areas develop, as a mish-mash of unemployed hippies and wealthy retirees, ardent environmentalists and traditional farmers, edgy artists and hopeful land developers, all in together trying to make a community. It is natural that tensions should run high, and that their ideals and objectives will be vastly different. Conflicts over land often involve intense emotion, as the stakes are so high – land use, land ownership, land history, collective land versus private land, boundary disputes, infrastructure – all are polarising issues.
Steven Lang divines the personalities of his characters with micro-accuracy and an attention to the detail of self-reflective thought that brings them to life as memorable three-dimensional figures. Indeed, one wonders how many locals or members of other small communities may see themselves or their neighbours in the characters in this book. All of the characters are flawed; all are beset by doubts and troubled pasts, by guilt or bad behaviour. Some are haunted by missed opportunities or a misspent youth, some are driven by ruthless ambition and greed. All are united, however, by their need for connection: connection to place and to the land; connection to the past; or connection to each other. All are searching for connection, but each travels a different path in its pursuit.
And this is where the story begins. For while this is a literary novel in that it defers to the beauty of landscape and language, it also propels us forward with a compelling story of controversy, betrayal and violence. Wealthy developers plan to construct a dam to provide much-needed water relief to outlying areas, and down to the coast. But many of the locals consider the dam an ill-thought out and unnecessary white elephant. In the heated discussions and skirmishes that follow, the politics of small-town communities are spotlighted front and centre – neighbours against friends, leaders against voters, locals against ring-in environmentalists.
The story is told from the perspectives of five main characters: Miles, Nick, Eugenie, Guy and Will. Through their quite different voices we see the events unfold from very different viewpoints. Will, particularly, is written in a voice so removed from the others; his personality setting him apart. And this is what brings the characters alive – they are all so separate, not only in their patterns of speech and their habits and their circumstances, but in their motivations and their backgrounds. Which is exactly how some of these rural tree-change areas develop, as a mish-mash of unemployed hippies and wealthy retirees, ardent environmentalists and traditional farmers, edgy artists and hopeful land developers, all in together trying to make a community. It is natural that tensions should run high, and that their ideals and objectives will be vastly different. Conflicts over land often involve intense emotion, as the stakes are so high – land use, land ownership, land history, collective land versus private land, boundary disputes, infrastructure – all are polarising issues.
Steven Lang divines the personalities of his characters with micro-accuracy and an attention to the detail of self-reflective thought that brings them to life as memorable three-dimensional figures. Indeed, one wonders how many locals or members of other small communities may see themselves or their neighbours in the characters in this book. All of the characters are flawed; all are beset by doubts and troubled pasts, by guilt or bad behaviour. Some are haunted by missed opportunities or a misspent youth, some are driven by ruthless ambition and greed. All are united, however, by their need for connection: connection to place and to the land; connection to the past; or connection to each other. All are searching for connection, but each travels a different path in its pursuit.
May 14, 2020
I sat with my cursor over the 4 and the 5 star for a few minutes here. It is a 5 star book because...it is a huge piece of home for me... it ranks up there with one of the books that I have read where I was most connected to the characters... it moves from political pain to the pain of a caged woman so easily. The writing was perfection for me.
I was scared to jump in to this book because it has such a close connection to the small town I grew up in. I know who those characters are based on. I could feel the pain of those people because I have sat with pained friends in that town many times.
I was worried that this author might have drawn too closely to the characters that walk the streets and at a few moments it was WAY too close for comfort.
But then I saw the skill in that. The skill in writing a known story. To not mimic but create the characters that you see every day. To not force the happy ending to a story you know so well.
And, once I got myself out of the way I was taken into a really strong story.
This moves through a number of perspectives with each chapter viewing this story through a different person's eyes. And those 4 or so people are connected, in small ways or in intimate ways, but their connections lead to the great sense of anticipation. You know what they are all thinking but they don't know what each other are thinking. And the one central problem - the building of a dam on rich, heritage farmland - binds the story together. But it doesn't take over the characters. It is so much more than an environmental fight.
Wow, what characters. I can't praise Steven Lang enough for writing these characters that I was completely drawn in to. I loved their political views, I loved how they came to be in this small town fighting for the land or for the dam, I loved how they viewed my town - oh wait, I mean their town, I loved the telling of their creative frustrations, their submission to the societal norms that has gone so horribly wrong, and their tussle with local vs. newcomer small town politics. It was all there.
This writing was perfect for me. And the huge sigh of relief that this book was great happened on the first few pages. I didn't need to wait to the end to know that Steven Lang written my town and sometimes my story with real skill and real connection. All I can say is - thank you.
I was scared to jump in to this book because it has such a close connection to the small town I grew up in. I know who those characters are based on. I could feel the pain of those people because I have sat with pained friends in that town many times.
I was worried that this author might have drawn too closely to the characters that walk the streets and at a few moments it was WAY too close for comfort.
But then I saw the skill in that. The skill in writing a known story. To not mimic but create the characters that you see every day. To not force the happy ending to a story you know so well.
And, once I got myself out of the way I was taken into a really strong story.
This moves through a number of perspectives with each chapter viewing this story through a different person's eyes. And those 4 or so people are connected, in small ways or in intimate ways, but their connections lead to the great sense of anticipation. You know what they are all thinking but they don't know what each other are thinking. And the one central problem - the building of a dam on rich, heritage farmland - binds the story together. But it doesn't take over the characters. It is so much more than an environmental fight.
Wow, what characters. I can't praise Steven Lang enough for writing these characters that I was completely drawn in to. I loved their political views, I loved how they came to be in this small town fighting for the land or for the dam, I loved how they viewed my town - oh wait, I mean their town, I loved the telling of their creative frustrations, their submission to the societal norms that has gone so horribly wrong, and their tussle with local vs. newcomer small town politics. It was all there.
This writing was perfect for me. And the huge sigh of relief that this book was great happened on the first few pages. I didn't need to wait to the end to know that Steven Lang written my town and sometimes my story with real skill and real connection. All I can say is - thank you.
July 13, 2017
Hinterland, Steven Lang’s third novel, is a very Australian story – a very Queensland story if it comes to that – but its themes are universal. All over the world people living in lovely places find themselves having to defend their patch against development. As in other places around the world, all around the Australian coastline, and in congenial inland places within commuting distance of the overcrowded cities, there are plans for apartments and housing developments, holiday and weekender accommodation, shopping centres, and posh new mansions for the multi-homed rich. That kind of development breeds infrastructure development: bigger roads, sewage and rubbish disposal systems, electricity and water supply. In Lang’s new novel set in the fictional town of Winderran, plans for a dam are ruffling feathers and not just because it would cut through some land that’s been restored from desertification.
The cast of characters includes tree-changers, blow-in greenies and people with long-established roots in the district. These characters are introduced by multiple narrators who all know each other with varying degrees of familiarity, each narration having its own distinctive voice. The story begins through Miles, the ageing doctor who’s taken to dealing with grief after the death of his wife, with alcohol. He knows everybody, from old Margaret Ewart living an independent life in dignified poverty, to Helen Lamprey, dying from cancer while her husband Guy, an author who’s lost his mojo, flirts with politics as a career alternative. Through Miles the reader sees that the town has a population of older residents augmented by the influx of wealthy retirees, and children. The generation in between has mostly fled, for brighter prospects elsewhere, though some are trickling in to service the needs of the growing population in places like the hospital and the medical centre. And – isolating themselves on the edge of town – there are also some creepy army veterans whose psychological damage distorts the ordinary humanity that most people share.
The second narrator, Dr Nick Lasker, has come to Winderran to escape his failed marriage, not deluding himself as to its cause. He’s an incorrigible womaniser who knows he should know better. Yet everywhere he goes, he’s sizing women up. In a bar where he’s hoping to meet up with an attractive nurse, he’s still eyeing off other women while he waits:
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/07/13/h...
The cast of characters includes tree-changers, blow-in greenies and people with long-established roots in the district. These characters are introduced by multiple narrators who all know each other with varying degrees of familiarity, each narration having its own distinctive voice. The story begins through Miles, the ageing doctor who’s taken to dealing with grief after the death of his wife, with alcohol. He knows everybody, from old Margaret Ewart living an independent life in dignified poverty, to Helen Lamprey, dying from cancer while her husband Guy, an author who’s lost his mojo, flirts with politics as a career alternative. Through Miles the reader sees that the town has a population of older residents augmented by the influx of wealthy retirees, and children. The generation in between has mostly fled, for brighter prospects elsewhere, though some are trickling in to service the needs of the growing population in places like the hospital and the medical centre. And – isolating themselves on the edge of town – there are also some creepy army veterans whose psychological damage distorts the ordinary humanity that most people share.
The second narrator, Dr Nick Lasker, has come to Winderran to escape his failed marriage, not deluding himself as to its cause. He’s an incorrigible womaniser who knows he should know better. Yet everywhere he goes, he’s sizing women up. In a bar where he’s hoping to meet up with an attractive nurse, he’s still eyeing off other women while he waits:
She stood up, almost colliding with a young man coming in the door. Nick watched as she wove her way back through the tables. A nice shape to her hips. Miles had said something to him one night in reference to women, how they no longer exerted power over him in the way they once had. Women, he’d said, had become just like other people now … he could relate to them based on who they were, on what they said or thought, as if they were nothing more than attractively shaped men. It wasn’t a concept Nick could even begin to embrace. (p.164)
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/07/13/h...
June 22, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. The characters were all interesting, some more flawed than others, but all them completely believable. The story had a great sense of place and I think this was underscored by the fact that the action and emotional drama all happened within a community and between different tribes within.
I think where the story most succeeded was by showing how extreme partisanship can play out in our lives. Lang shows this from the vantage point of the extremes at both ends of the political spectrum.
Lang also cleverly shows how discombobulating it can be for those who feel like the ground is changing underneath them as society's mores evolve uncontrollably around them.
I liked how the ending showed the reader promise of a future without tying everything up in a neat bow.
This is a good read if you're interested in a story about community, its tribes and how they bump up against each other.
I think where the story most succeeded was by showing how extreme partisanship can play out in our lives. Lang shows this from the vantage point of the extremes at both ends of the political spectrum.
Lang also cleverly shows how discombobulating it can be for those who feel like the ground is changing underneath them as society's mores evolve uncontrollably around them.
I liked how the ending showed the reader promise of a future without tying everything up in a neat bow.
This is a good read if you're interested in a story about community, its tribes and how they bump up against each other.
October 9, 2017
Three and a half stars. A bit of a mixed response here. It's a modern Australian drama with a lot of good elements but it was just too long. Set in the hinterland of Queensland's Sunshine Coast, that's a good start, description of the landscape is a definite strength. Small town equals big characters with messy lives. Characters are strongly divided in their passions: the environment, political ambition, sex, the tribe, tradition, progress, wealth, all cause trouble. Interestingly structured, the plot unfolds from different angles. Too much back story for some characters makes it uneven in the telling.
February 20, 2018
Too often a book relating to environmental issues follows didactic fault lines - those who vote for progress and those who oppose. Here, though, Steven creates characters who assume more subtle positions along the spectrum, making for a more nuanced, enjoyable read. The more interesting characters in the novel are those who struggle to find their moral boundaries, from Guy Lamprey, the writer who is being courted by politicians whose moral baseline is ever-shifting, to the hazy-headed army mechanic Will who is quickly out of his depth when it comes to executing a violent plan to undermine the protesters' campaign. Multiple-voiced narratives can often lead to fractured story lines but the central issue of the dam keeps the plot line on point. What I enjoyed most about this book, though, was the dense, richly laconic prose style, strongest when the characters were at their weakest.
From Miles, the doctor who is sliding into alcoholism, "...his apparent inability to stop once he's started, lying on the couch into the small hours, keeping himself just exactly where he needs to be with ever less carefully measured doses of brandy until it's all gone and the television has descended into even more profound meaninglessness than when he started..."
Miles is equally ineffective against the onslaught of new technology, "...there are ever more screens between him and his patients, a raft of technology on which he is barely floating, whose bindings threaten to come loose beneath him with every wave."
And then there is Miles observation of patients like Margaret Ewart, "...the problem being she's not for moving; despite her age, eighty something and in general disrepair, she still has all her smarts, still wants to drive a little white Toyota flatbed in and out of town, picking up her bags of dog and chook food, her staples of white bread and tea and canned ham, going to meetings of the hospital auxiliary carrying plates of cornflake biscuits. Living for who knows what reason. Although that could be said about most of us."
At times the prose style reminds me of Frank Moorhouse, as when Nick observes a minor character called Barkham who could be seen..."settling into his chair, that large over-expressive face, folds on folds - you wondered how he ever managed to shave - hovering beneath those extraordinary eyebrows, looking to steer the conversation into an area of interest."
After a seemingly fallow period, Steven has at last steered his writers into Hinterland, an area of interest for lovers of good writing, with a book that holds out an engaging, expressive face.
From Miles, the doctor who is sliding into alcoholism, "...his apparent inability to stop once he's started, lying on the couch into the small hours, keeping himself just exactly where he needs to be with ever less carefully measured doses of brandy until it's all gone and the television has descended into even more profound meaninglessness than when he started..."
Miles is equally ineffective against the onslaught of new technology, "...there are ever more screens between him and his patients, a raft of technology on which he is barely floating, whose bindings threaten to come loose beneath him with every wave."
And then there is Miles observation of patients like Margaret Ewart, "...the problem being she's not for moving; despite her age, eighty something and in general disrepair, she still has all her smarts, still wants to drive a little white Toyota flatbed in and out of town, picking up her bags of dog and chook food, her staples of white bread and tea and canned ham, going to meetings of the hospital auxiliary carrying plates of cornflake biscuits. Living for who knows what reason. Although that could be said about most of us."
At times the prose style reminds me of Frank Moorhouse, as when Nick observes a minor character called Barkham who could be seen..."settling into his chair, that large over-expressive face, folds on folds - you wondered how he ever managed to shave - hovering beneath those extraordinary eyebrows, looking to steer the conversation into an area of interest."
After a seemingly fallow period, Steven has at last steered his writers into Hinterland, an area of interest for lovers of good writing, with a book that holds out an engaging, expressive face.
July 19, 2017
Pockets of prose perfection ("A beautiful confection. As if he had created a pavlova" but in a good way that makes you sink deep, luxuriating in the thoughts and musings of each of the multiple protagonists). But at times there are grating attempts to force political positions about the "Left" and the "Right" which had the reverse effect, ensuring my resistance.
PS. I particularly enjoyed the delicious cameo of Australia's two most loved movie critics and the very convincing inciting incident it created for the author/intellectual, Guy Lamprey.
PS. I particularly enjoyed the delicious cameo of Australia's two most loved movie critics and the very convincing inciting incident it created for the author/intellectual, Guy Lamprey.
October 9, 2017
Beautifully written book, loved the portrait of the Australian rural landscape, the town, and its people. The way development proposals can divide a community; activists and developers pitted against each other. Having a great run of books of late!
November 11, 2017
I real;ly enjoyed this - super topical, right up to date with many of the issues facing us in Australia right now. Very well written, interesting and well developed characters, quite slow paced but held my attention throughout, and I cared for several of the characters - always a good sign.
November 30, 2017
We're in a small town in south east Queensland, Australia (it's a fictional town but supposedly modelled on Maleny). The story focuses on three key characters: Nick the local doctor, Eugenie a local nurse, and Guy who is an author now eyeing a career in politics. However the cast also includes a large number of others. The plot takes a long time to take shape, but essentially it's about the impact on the town on the plans to construct a dam nearby, a proposal which polarises the residents and which causes tensions to gradually build.
It's a slow moving book and it took me over a week to read (which is a long time for me). I liked the way the author writes and I enjoyed the way he brought the town so vividly to life. The characters were complex and developed but somehow they never felt like real people. The story takes forever to get going and then finishes quite abruptly.
It's a slow moving book and it took me over a week to read (which is a long time for me). I liked the way the author writes and I enjoyed the way he brought the town so vividly to life. The characters were complex and developed but somehow they never felt like real people. The story takes forever to get going and then finishes quite abruptly.
February 24, 2020
This book is missing something. The story sounds entrancing, especially having lived in a small country town, but the focus on the dam gets lost in amongst everything else happening in this novel. I found the author’s descriptions of women perhaps the most grating element of this book, and his obsession with their bodies frustrating. The town is interesting but isn’t particularly well described either, and while the characters are complex they fall a little short of my empathy meter. While there’s some enormous faults in some of them as people, there’s no attempt to humanise beyond that. The quantity of affairs was also a little too much to take, but the writing was decent, evocative, and helped form a strong base to this book. It’s just the execution where things got a little lag in translation.
April 21, 2018
The first thing that struck me reading this book was the lack of tense in Lang's writing. While strange to read at first, after a while it created a sense of immediacy, as if everything is happening in the present.
Hinterland is a fascinating character-driven novel, one that pushes past cliche and generalities to get to the heart of how the characters act and think and feel. I really liked Lang's descriptions, and found myself many times thinking, "that is *exactly* how that feels like. It's unexpectedly funny too, and I say unexpected because each of the characters bring with them deep flaws and tragedy, real darkness and moments when you can't believe they think and do what they do.
Thoroughly engrossing, reminded me a lot of Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behaviour but grittier.
Hinterland is a fascinating character-driven novel, one that pushes past cliche and generalities to get to the heart of how the characters act and think and feel. I really liked Lang's descriptions, and found myself many times thinking, "that is *exactly* how that feels like. It's unexpectedly funny too, and I say unexpected because each of the characters bring with them deep flaws and tragedy, real darkness and moments when you can't believe they think and do what they do.
Thoroughly engrossing, reminded me a lot of Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behaviour but grittier.
May 14, 2024
I read this book during a three month visit to my sister, who lives just outside Maleny, where the novel is set.
It captures the place well, albeit as it was a few years ago, as things have moved on, as they do, and gentrification has gathered pace, displacing the hippies of a decade ago.
An enjoyable and well written novel, which held my interest.
Unfortunately the ending was a little disappointing, with a feeling that nothing was quite resolved and that certain characters, whose inner voices we had heard in detail, had just been dropped like stones.
It captures the place well, albeit as it was a few years ago, as things have moved on, as they do, and gentrification has gathered pace, displacing the hippies of a decade ago.
An enjoyable and well written novel, which held my interest.
Unfortunately the ending was a little disappointing, with a feeling that nothing was quite resolved and that certain characters, whose inner voices we had heard in detail, had just been dropped like stones.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 16, 2025
Set in the hinterland of Qld there is a controversial dam project. With hippie camps against it and the politicians who are for it. Bit confusing with all the politics. I didn’t like the doctor. His morals were awful, treating women really badly. The ending was odd .
June 28, 2017
Loved it.
August 8, 2018
A beautifully written book - the author gets under the skin of all his characters and brings them to life, flaws and all.
July 19, 2018
Great read, felt like I was back in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland again.
December 8, 2019
Not sure what I think about this book. I read it to the end, wondering where it was going. Characters were well developed as was the plot, but for me, it didn't quite hit the mark.
June 20, 2020
I gave up by p60. Felt it was a bit predictable? Plenty of other books to read just now
January 10, 2021
'Hinterland' is a gripping tale.
There is so much going on in this small Queensland hinterland township. Winderran has been invaded over time by escapees from the city - retired businessmen turned hobby farmer, with wealth on display and often trophy wives. The tree-planting of an earlier invasion of newcomers has annoyed farmers who have grazed the land for generations. The latest challenge facing the community is the proposal for a dam. That is when the protesters move in. Some of them locals and many from further away - the usual hippy types who turn up for every protest.
There is a strong undercurrent of politics as the movers and shakers try to forge ahead with plans for the dam. Does that environmentally threatened frog really exist in the creek to be dammed?
Will the extreme right wing group cause damage to both sides?
None of the characters is really likeable whether the reader agrees with their agenda or not.
Most are self centered, many are driven by ambition, greed or sex - or a combination of all of these things. There is a large cast of characters and each chapter is devoted to one of them which makes it a little hard to adjust when a new chapter begins. From the doctor, nurse, poet/would-be senator, the hippy 'blow-ins" camping by the creek, the returned servicemen in their hideaway, the long-time residents and the newcomers it is a broad cast.
Well worth reading despite the lack of a satisfactory conclusion.
There is so much going on in this small Queensland hinterland township. Winderran has been invaded over time by escapees from the city - retired businessmen turned hobby farmer, with wealth on display and often trophy wives. The tree-planting of an earlier invasion of newcomers has annoyed farmers who have grazed the land for generations. The latest challenge facing the community is the proposal for a dam. That is when the protesters move in. Some of them locals and many from further away - the usual hippy types who turn up for every protest.
There is a strong undercurrent of politics as the movers and shakers try to forge ahead with plans for the dam. Does that environmentally threatened frog really exist in the creek to be dammed?
Will the extreme right wing group cause damage to both sides?
None of the characters is really likeable whether the reader agrees with their agenda or not.
Most are self centered, many are driven by ambition, greed or sex - or a combination of all of these things. There is a large cast of characters and each chapter is devoted to one of them which makes it a little hard to adjust when a new chapter begins. From the doctor, nurse, poet/would-be senator, the hippy 'blow-ins" camping by the creek, the returned servicemen in their hideaway, the long-time residents and the newcomers it is a broad cast.
Well worth reading despite the lack of a satisfactory conclusion.
September 19, 2024
This got good towards the end. I dare say the story foreshadows what may become of our world… or probably already has.
If you are cynical about power, the privacy granted to those who really have power, the absolute gutlessness of the state and eco-criticism, you shall enjoy Hinterland.
If you are cynical about power, the privacy granted to those who really have power, the absolute gutlessness of the state and eco-criticism, you shall enjoy Hinterland.
January 4, 2020
A subtle and engrossing tale which deftly mixes small town personal politics with grander movements. His best so far.
October 22, 2017
Good premise and some interesting characters but lost its way!
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews