Bird Country (ePub)

The sparkling debut from an exciting new voice in Australian fiction, Claire Aman. Bird Country is a collection of spare and affecting portraits of ordinary people in rural Australia.

A boat trip in a squall to scatter the ashes of an old man, who was not loved.
A young father, driving his daughters home across grass plains, unable to tell them that their mother has died.

A speech that doesn't include the aching pain of trying to save a cousin's life.

A mother hiding her fugitive son in a cockatoo cage as the river rises.

A man pouring his life into finding the perfect stained glass after his wife has left him.

A woman longing for the right person to tell about her sister's death, while she works nightshift at a roadhouse.These are moving and evocative stories about love and loss and yearning—and the things we don't say. Claire Aman is a strong new voice in Australian fiction.
Claire Aman grew up in Melbourne, but has lived most of her life in rural Australia, in and around Grafton in New South Wales. Her short stories have been published in a number of collections and several have won prizes, including the Wet Ink/CAL Prize and the Hal Porter Prize.
'A suite of quietly beautiful short stories based in and around Grafton...A loving snapshot of a naturally beautiful but slightly melancholy rural centre. They are stories of fierce family loyalties, old age, poverty and small dignities, the kind that country towns seem to embody.' Books+Publishing