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Salt Creek

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Salt Creek

By: Lucy Treloar
Narrated by: Ulli Birvé
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About this listen

From the winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the 2013 Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award comes Lucy Treloar's new novel.

Some things collapse slow and cannot always be rebuilt, and even if a thing can be remade it will never be as it was.

In 1855 Salt Creek lies at the far reaches of the remote, beautiful and inhospitable coastal region, the Coorong, in the new province of South Australia. The area, just opened to graziers willing to chance their luck, becomes home to Stanton Finch and his large family, including 15-year-old Hester Finch. Once wealthy political activists, the Finch family has fallen on hard times. Cut adrift from the polite society they were raised to be part of, Hester and her siblings make connections where they can, with the few travellers who pass along the nearby stock route - among them a young artist, Charles - and the Ngarrindjeri people they have dispossessed.

Over the years that pass, an Aboriginal boy, Tully, at first a friend, becomes part of the family. Stanton's attempts to tame the harsh landscape bring ruin to the Ngarrindjeri people's homes and livelihoods and unleash a chain of events that will tear the family asunder. As Hester witnesses the destruction of the Ngarrindjeri's subtle culture and the ideals that her family once held so close, she begins to wonder what civilization is. Was it for this life and this world that she was educated?

©2015 Lucy Treloar (P)2016 Bolinda
Historical Fiction Fiction
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Thank you Lucy. So true to the country and considering some of the many issues faced by the Aboriginals in Australia. We need to own and speak about the terrible things done to them and their land during White settlement.

Amazing to read after just visiting the Coorong

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The story was written so beautifully. I would read again in a Koorong heartbeat 💓

What a wonderful story

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The narration was just perfect, specially about Tully.
Powerful emotions surfaced in me about white man's behaviour as they settled in Australia.
Even the "kindest" of the charachters considered it normal to take what they needed and let the blacks "move on".
White man could have learnt so much from the native people.

Useful for Aboriginal studies. Its not page turning fiction, but a valuable resource, exposing racism, hypocrisy and abuse in story form. An editor would have done well to remove the repetitive "he said, she said" throughout, which was a bit annoying for audio.

pevocative

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I first read Wolfe Island and loved it so much I bought the audiobook of Salt Creek and was not disappointed. I just wish there was more of Lucy's work out there. The characters are all dealt with realistically, sympathetically, and I feel I know them. this of course means that when the book ends, I miss them. To me this is the sign of a good writer. Thank you Lucy and Ulli.

Lucy Treloar is up there with the best

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slow to start but worth it. a great tragic story with a vividly depicted backdrop of the Australian bush

fantastic story that really brings the era to life

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At first I wasn't sure if this book would be too wrapped up in early Australian politics but the story is far from it!
I found this book to be captivating and a very interesting account of the early days of Australian Settlers. The characters are engaging and the story throws up some interesting twists!

A Good Aussie Story

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I am on holidays and could not have been in a place less like salt creek but was total immersed in the area from the second I opened the app. I could smell it, taste it and feel it all around me

loved every sentence of it

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a story of struggle and honour, love and decay in a harsh disappointing landscape.
the narrator had a lovely voice and character expression

loved it beautifully written and read!

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Excellent narration of a unique and fascinating story. Engaging and yet appalling at the same time.

Loved this!

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I found this book to be difficult to finish. Whilst the storyline is quite interesting it seemed to take forever to actually say anything. I lost interest often and it really wasn’t until the last third of the book that I was able to maintain my interest. I found it too much of a struggle to really enjoy.

Just too slow

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.