First published 2006
Robert Pettergree has an odd habit of tasting soil to judge its quality. In 1934, he works aboard the government Better Farming Train, which carries livestock and agricultural experts across rural Australia to promote scientific cultivation methods. The train stops in dusty wheat towns where Robert spreads the gospel that science and productivity serve the nation. On this mobile crusade, he meets Jean Finnegan, a skilled seamstress hungry for learning. They fall in love amid the swaying train cars filled with cows, pigs, and grain samples. Scientific idealism runs high as they marry and move to the struggling Mallee region, determined to prove that modern methods can revive the barren land. Season after season, their crops fail. The community around them crumbles. A new world war threatens on the horizon. Robert and Jean must face what their scientific ambitions have cost them, their neighbors, and the ancient landscape itself.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, agriculture
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Australia, Mallee Region
Period: 1934
Hardcover · Picador