At the farthest extent of Australia's Blue Mountains, on the threshold
of the country's arid interior, the Blue Plateau reveals the vagaries of
a hanging climate: the droughts last longer, the seasons change less,
and the wildfires burn hotter and more often. In The Blue Plateau,
Mark Tredinnick tries to learn what it means to fall in love with a home
that is falling away.
A landscape memoir in the richest sense, Tredinnick's story reveals as
much about this contrary collection of canyons and ancient rivers, cow
paddocks and wild eucalyptus forests as it does about the myriad
generations who struggled to remain in the valley they loved. It
captures the essence of a wilderness beyond subjugation, the spirit of a
people just barely beyond defeat. Charting a lithology of indigenous
presence, faltering settlers, failing ranches, floods, tragedy, and joy
that the place constantly warps and erodes, The Blue Plateau reminds
us that, though we may change the landscape around us, it works at us
inexorably, with wind and water, heat and cold, altering who and what we
are.
The result is an intimate and illuminating portrayal of tenacity, love,
grief, and belonging. In the tradition of James Galvin, William Least
Heat-Moon, and Annie Dillard, Tredinnick plumbs the depths of people's
relationship to a world in transition.
