Fred Scully waits at the arrival gate of an international airport, anxious to see his wife and daughter. After two years in Europe they are finally settling down. He sees a new life before them, a stable outlook again, a fresh start, a cottage in the Irish countryside that he’s renovated by hand. He’s waited, sweated on this reunion. The flight lands. The doors at the airport hiss open. And Scully’s life falls to pieces.

Tim Winton’s characters are ordinary people who battle to maintain loyalty against all odds; women, children, men whose relationships strain under pressure and leave them bewildered, hoping, sometimes fleeing, but often finding strength in forgotten parts of themselves.