Crash-landed in the Australian outback, two child survivors encounter an Aboriginal boy on âwalkaboutâ in this âhauntingâ story of culture clash and survival âin the same vein as A High Wind in Jamaicaâ (Time).
A plane crashes in the vast Northern Territory of Australia, and the only survivors are two children from Charleston, South Carolina, on their way to visit their uncle in Adelaide. Mary and her younger brother, Peter, set out on foot, lost in the vast, hot Australian outback. They are saved by a chance meeting with an unnamed Aboriginal boy on walkabout. He looks after the two strange white children and shows them how to find food and water in the wilderness, and yet, for all that, Mary is filled with distrust.
On the surface Walkabout is an adventure story, but darker themes lie beneath. Peterâs innocent friendship with the boy met in the desert throws into relief Maryâs half-adult anxieties, and the book as a whole raises questions about what is lostâand may be savedâwhen different worlds meet. And in reading Marshallâs extraordinary evocations of the beautiful yet forbidding landscape of the Australian desert, perhaps the most striking presence of all in this small, perfect book, we realize that this taleâa deep yet disturbing story in the spirit of Adalbert Stifterâs Rock Crystal and Richard Hughesâs A High Wind in Jamaicaâis also a reckoning with the mysteriously regenerative powers of death.