In 1979, at the age of fourteen, Ray McCullough ran away from his home on a western New South Wales sheep property following a violent confrontation with his dad, Jim McCullough. He left behind his mother, Delly, and two loved sisters, Ursula and Tilda.
Now 41, Ray works as an itinerant cook, barman and labourer across the remote outback. Rarely spending more than a few months in one job or place, he is self-sufficient and self-taught, a practical man in love with words, history, landscape and solitude. Deeply wary of other people and believing he suffers from an inherited streak of violence, he has spent his life running away from memories of family and home.
Six months earlier, Ray receives news of the death of Delly McCullough from his old friend Charley, the alcoholic drifter whose body was found in the pub. With Mick, a troubled fourteen-year-old boy, Ray embarks on a journey of his own, searching first for Ursula and news of Delly, then meeting Jim again for the first time in nearly 30 years. On the way he is drawn unwillingly into a new life with Mick's mother Lily, on their failing family farm near Bourke.
The Far-Back Country is an extraordinary story about memory, mistaken identity, false knowledge and how the idea of family can define us.
