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Whistler's Bones: A Novel of the Australian Frontier by [Greg Barron]

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Greg Barron

Whistler's Bones: A Novel of the Australian Frontier Kindle Edition

by Greg Barron (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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In 1880, at the age of fifteen, Charlie Gaunt left his home in Bendigo and signed on as a drover with Nat Buchanan. Two years later he was a key man on one of Australia’s greatest cattle drives – the Durack family’s epic journey from Cooper’s Creek, Queensland – to the Kimberley. Drawing on Charlie’s largely unknown story, and filling in the gaps with fiction, the author has created a novel unique in Australian literature. An unprecedented adventure, and a passionate love story – Whistler's Bones is both a celebration of the good things in the settlement of Northern Australia – and a damning indictment of the bad.

Print length

338 pages
Language

English
Publication date

21 October 2017
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3951 KB
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B074PL414J
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stories of Oz Publishing (21 October 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3951 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 338 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 3,839 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 11 in Westerns (Books)
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- 294 in Historical Fiction (Books)

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279 ratings

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Greg Barron

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Crime, terrorism, history, international politics and the wide open spaces of outback Australia are all passionate interests of author Greg Barron. He has lived in North America, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. His books, published by HarperCollins Australia and Stories of Oz Publishing, are gutsy pageturners that tell the truth about the world, then and now. Rotten Gods was long listed for the prestigious Ned Kelly awards, and has been lauded as "one of the most sophisticated geopolitical thrillers ever written." Savage Tide was described by ABC Radio reviewer Rob Minshull as; "Both supremely intelligent and written at breathtaking pace."

Camp Leichhardt is the first of his Australian stories to see print, and was serialised in 2016 to wide acclaim. Rotten Gods, Savage Tide, Voodoo Dawn and Lethal Sky all feature Marika Hartmann, the Australian intelligence agent who won the hearts of readers all over the world.

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Brilliant! Wrenching. Amazing.

Reviewed in Australia on 25 July 2018

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Greg Barron, I take my hat off to you. I thought this was brilliant.
Whistler's Bones is a fascinating story based on the life of drover Charlie Gaunt who was one of the trial-blazing horsemen and drovers of the 1880s driving cattle across Australia into the Northern Territory to establish the vast pastoral stations of central and northern Australia.
Boy, this is a wrenching tale. Through the eyes of Charlie, it is a no-holds barred view of 'white man' life and attitudes at the time. With more than 100 years of hindsight, the attitude of those drovers and cattle barons when it came to conquering the land as well as the native Australians - some of whom increasingly opposed them - but others who assisted them, makes for compelling and confronting reading.
Charlie has all the flaws of a young man who feels immortal. What starts out as an innocence is stripped from him within years of his setting off for adventure on a horse called Constance, and Charlie does terrible things for his bosses, and out of loyalty to his colleagues, for love, and sometimes simply to survive in an unforgiving land, and his actions both shape, drive and haunt him the rest of his days.
The bulk of the story narrates a two-year cattle drive across Australia with the Durack family, and recounts the many trials of the period - malaria for the men, sickness of cattle, loneliness, stampedes, starvation, drought, and as the drove moves into its second year, more and more increasingly hostile encounters between the 'invading' cattle, horses and stockmen and the various indigenous tribes of the Northern Territory and Queensland.
Yet there is a love story at the centre of the tale too. The innocent Charlie who starts this story and for whom a great pleasure is to drink a glass of 'Creaming Soda' in a pub... is not the Charlie who becomes bitter and jealous, restless and resentful when the love of his life leaves him.
I found Charlie's loss of this innocence terribly sad. Although of course, that's life.
The descriptions of the Australian outback are breathtaking. I have travelled some of the north of the country in 1999, in a 4WD and on reasonable roads, not horseback. I've been to Lawn Hill Station and Borroloola, and I remember vividly the vast and ancient sense of the land. It was wonderful to revisit that space, colour, scent and memory of Australia in these pages.
I don't know why I don't expand my reading with more early Australian history - I really do enjoy these factual stories entwined in fiction, and I might make it a goal to read more in this time period.
Bravo, Greg Barron. Your writing is amazing.

4 people found this helpful

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Jennifer McLeod

Uniquely told and historically significant

Reviewed in Australia on 3 April 2019

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A unique perspective of early life in Australia, set in the harsh outback and detailing (with a fascinating blend of fact and fiction) an important part of history, based on the life of Charlie Gaunt, an accidental drover and trail-blazer in the 1880s. This tale is about driving cattle across Australia into the Northern Territory where the vast pastoral stations of central and northern Australia were established.

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Chris Gordon

The book is a great read, and I think one of the author's ...

Reviewed in Australia on 13 March 2018

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Whistler's Bones is a sprawling frontier adventure that tells the story of an absolute nugget of Australian history, Charlie Gaunt. Gaunt's adventures take him through a number of significant events in Australian and world history - a veritable Forrest Gump of his times. The book is a great read, and I think one of the author's finest.

The story of Gaunt, a real-life historical figure, represents a largely untapped vein although many of the people wrapped around that vein, including the Duracks and Nat Buchanan, are better known. As a young teen, Charlie Gaunt leaves his family and life in 1880s Bendigo to find what sort of life he can make for himself armed with little more than some potential as a horseman. Thus begins the story that takes him across Australia, and across the world.

The strength of this novel for me, aside from the enthralling story telling, lay with the unfiltered retelling of Gaunt's story. Although an interesting and intriguing character, he is abundantly flawed. Some of his actions are indefensible and deplorable. In Gaunt, Whistler's Bones delivers a boy-to-man character we can at times admire, at times sympathise with and at times despise.

The author's decision to focus primarily on Gaunt's early manhood, and retell the rest of his story in brief, underpins the fondest memories and greatest regrets that would stay with Gaunt for life. In resisting the temptation to lionise Gaunt and turn him into a champion of causes and rights that exist now but didn't then, Barron provides a near-as-possible to accurate rendering of the man and his times. And while I'm sure the author is uncomfortable with the terms used and attitudes towards aboriginal Australians at the time, they are present in the book in unvarnished detail because to modify them would be revisionism.

Having grown up in Goulburn and being educated at St Pat's, the story of the Durack family and their epic cattle drive across to the Kimberleys was known to me, but I have to admit not in such detail or breadth. Whistler's Bones is a worthy addition to Australian literature and is deserving of being included in Australian school curricula where Gaunt's choices, the treatment of indigenous Australians and frontier life in Australian would provoke informative discussions and perhaps a desire to read more of this era and better understand it. This painstakingly researched book has certainly sent me in that direction.

I've read a number of Greg's books, but enjoyed this the most. Barron is a fine author at the peak of his powers telling stories he is passionate about. Five stars.

3 people found this helpful

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Harry Peek

As raw as it gets

Reviewed in Australia on 15 January 2022

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Greg Barron has taken the writings of an old hand of the Territory and woven a human backdrop to the extraordinary life of Charlie Gaunt. Murders,wars, fights, love, mateship and betrayal.
This book should be compulsory reading in every school in Australia.

One person found this helpful

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Papa Inura

Interesting view of early Australian Outback/droving History.

Reviewed in Australia on 21 September 2019

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I found the book disturbing, especially to the treatment of the Native Australian!
The story is written in a manner that is quite open and does not avoid the ugliness of Australian history!
Would recommend it to be read by all Australians!!

One person found this helpful

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Ken Davis

Dinkum Aussie Tale

Reviewed in Australia on 9 May 2018

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Great read. This book is co er to cover with real Aussie people that worked their arses off to open up the outback and spread the population across the nation. It talks of the treatment of the indigenous peoples and their ways and how they fought back against superior weaponry. Loved it from start to finish

One person found this helpful

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Sandra Bridge

A look at the past

Reviewed in Australia on 11 February 2020

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I found the book to reveal the ugly side of men looking to make fortunes, showing no understanding of others. Charlie was an adventurer, did things he was ashamed of, ended up in an asylum, but was able to show there was goodness in his heart.
A great read.

One person found this helpful

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narelle bennett

Whistler's Bones

Reviewed in Australia on 5 July 2019

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I liked this novel except towards the end after they had reached the Kimberleys, it seemed a bit like Forest Gump!!

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B. D. Walley

An Eye Opener

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 February 2021

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I had never really thought about the real history of Australia. In school we were taught that Australia was a significant part of the British Empire with vast mineral resources, huge cattle and sheep enterprises and a popular destination for emigrants - mostly white Europeans. This book has opened my eyes to the hardships the early settlers faced as they branched out to all the corners of this massive continent. But what hit me the most was the effect on the native population and the attitude of the white 'invaders' at the time. The culture then was very much white supremacist and the book does not hold back on the grim and harsh treatment of aborigines as the settlers moved into their native homelands.
The story is essentially a biography of the life of Charles Gaunt and follows his exploits as he works his way across Australia, from herding cattle, to gold prospecting, pearl diving and then crab fishing in America. A good read particularly for those who want an insight into the early history of Australia.

Vic Turner

True Australia ?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 September 2019

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I became lost in these (?) fictional/true pages of life of a cattle drover in Australia, although not brave enough, I would have liked to experienced (some) of the (to me) freedom of the wild open land before it became 'civilised', I'll be on the lookout for books in the same vein.

terry spellman

Enjoyable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 January 2021

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It’s an easy read to fill in your lockdown

TING

enjoyable read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 October 2018

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the story holds the readers attention throughout

Free Man of the world

bit long winded it parts but very informative of life for early British Occupied Australia. Gives a glimpse of how occupation forces kill or subdue the native people

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 August 2019

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explains why natives are so subdued.
Not a good picture of the early police force.
the occupying forces left a terrible scar on the country

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