Beyond the Pale

In 1839 John Harrington voyages 12,000 miles from Ireland into the unknown to take up a sheep-run in the southern regions of Australia. From a distinguished family of Anglo-Irish aristocrats who have fallen on hard times, the youngest son has been sent to the remotest part of the world to make his fortune.As a bulwark against the savagery and hostility of the new land, Harrington determines to build a mansion and a garden - a great and beautiful domain, a civilised refuge modelled on the estates of Europe. His chief helper in the creation of this demesne is a native Irishman, Daniel O'Leary.For twenty years Harrington prospers, but he is plagued by a sense of dislocation and loneliness in a hostile place. When he is joined by his drunken brother and his married sister, tragedy and violence ensue. There are enemies: the rapacious landowner and merchant Rutford, the wily lands commissioner Crowther, the insane missionary Stovyer, the rake Butler, the Aborigines and the land itself. And there are enemies within: disloyal staff, treachery and sabotage on the estate.Beyond the Pale is a powerful and uncompromising novel of the colonisers and the colonised. It is a story of displacement, racial brutality and treachery in an unforgiving and misunderstood landscape. It explores the wellsprings of Australia's culture.Hooker, John is the author of 'Beyond the Pale', published 1998 under ISBN 9781864486407 and ISBN 1864486406.