Additional information
| Weight | 300 g |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 140 × 210 mm |
| Imprint | Boolarong Press |
| ISBN | 9781923321236 |
| Page extent | 143 |
| Format | |
| Publication Year | 2025 |
| Subject | Australiana, Fiction |
The Honeypot
$24.99
A provocative new Outback novel by award-winning writer and broadcaster Russell Guy
John Booke, a farmer’s son from south-east Queensland, is on the run—caught up in the fallout of an affair he never knew was illicit. With a price on his head, he escapes to a lonely Outback roadhouse where he hopes anonymity will keep him safe.
But anonymity is short-lived. After an unexpected moment at a funeral is perceived as a miracle, the neighbouring Indigenous community begin referring to him as an “ingkarte”—a man of God. Despite his shaky faith and a life shaped by the dislocations of the sexual revolution, Booke finds himself reluctantly stepping into the role of missionary, spiritual guide and reformer.
The roadhouse becomes a crucible.
Bruce Shepherd, an Indigenous activist who has traded city life for his grandmother’s world of traditional art, watches Booke with curiosity.
Cheeseburger, the roadhouse cook, digs too deeply into Booke’s past.
And Rhonda, a former rock guitarist living quietly in a caravan, holds secrets of her own.
Amid Indigenous artists, grey nomads, roadhouse politics, outback humour and a “river of grog” that divides the community, Booke searches for moral footing in a place where truth, identity and belonging have never been more contested.
The Honey Pot is at once a story of flight and arrival, fear and courage, and of the fragile bridges built between cultures on Australia’s remote mulga plains.
Peter Bishop. Former Director. Varuna Writer’s Centre. Katoomba (store manager) –
‘I’m delighted to say The Honeypot is that very rare thing: a good short novel. I was thoroughly engaged. I know very well that publishers aren’t looking for good short novels —and they are certainly not looking for the lifetime of complex moral growth you exemplify in The Honeypot. I’m resolute and unfashionable in claiming that writing is the most important and useful thing we can do as human beings —but only if we speak out of our own growth and understanding, which is wonderfully different for every writer.’
Peter Bishop. Former Director. Varuna Writer’s Centre. Katoomba.