| From the dust jacket: "... Early in his career,
Upfield wrote two thrillers ... a romance ... and a mainstream novel about a three-year
drought in the Australian Outback, Gripped by Drought. At the time
Gripped by Drought was written (1931) Upfield was still employed as a boundary
rider on State rabbit Fence #1 ... Gripped by Drought then was based on
his personal experience of withering drought in the vast reaches of the Australian
bush. | Gripped by Drought is a powerful story of a man's battle not
only with the elements of nature which threatened the ruins of his huge Australian
sheep farm, but also with a loveless and unhappy marriage. For Frank Mayne, master
of a well-nigh a million-acre sheep station, life assumed its most dreary aspect.
No rain for his farm, a wife who involved him in an orgy of spending and entertainment,
and with disaster just around the corner, there seemed little prospect of Happiness.
Yet in the darkest hour of all, after many unexpected and sometimes thrilling
situations, the darkest hour of the drought gave way to rain and Mayne's tribulations
became of the past. |
| Author's
Preface THERE is no greater Australian drama than a three years' drought,
and such a drought, associated with drought in the human heart, is the theme of
this plain tale for plain people. The course of this fictitious drought
is based on the course of a real drought. I have followed the weather records
over an actual three-year drought period, and no city critic can say that such
a drought is impossible. Similarly, I have followed actual wool prices over the
same period. And finally, the succession of mental phases which the "new-chum"
in the bush must live through, or else desert to a city, is real and based on
personal experience. I should like to add that my original title for this
work was the one all-sufficient word Drought. It was found, however, that already
a novel under this title was in circulation, so that regretfully the present more
sensational title was substituted. KALAMUNDA, W. A. 1932 |
