Displaced

John Kinsella’s  memoir of his rural life takes us deep into the heart of what it means to  belong and unbelong. The joys and travails of childhood, adult addictions,  missteps and changing directions are acutely captured in poignant and poetic  detail.

While centred on Jam Tree Gully in rural Western Australia, the memoir also moves between Ohio, Schull and Cambridge, mixing regionalism with an international  sense of responsibility. What will strike the reader are the detailed  observations of daily life, the engagement with topography and flora and fauna  that embody the author’s conviction that ‘all is in everything and that every  leaf of grass is vital’.       

In his most  intimate prose work to date, Kinsella never shies from writing about the  violence and intolerance of those scared of difference, and the ways in which  his ethics have sometimes been met with disdain or outright hostility. But with  nuance and humour he also celebrates rural community and its willingness to  lend a hand.   

At once tender, urgent and intelligent, Displaced is ultimately a call to personal action.