This is an autobiography by one of Australia's finest writers. Joan Colebrook grew up in northern Queensland, where she tells of a country rich in beauty and contradictions: aboriginal gunyahs and afternoon tea; monsoons and Victrola dances; bush missionaries and Anglican girls' schools. The fourth child of cultivated, pioneering parents - her father was involved in politics - she came to recognise in herself a conflict between the demands of European decorum and the sort of courageous brashness which had originally brought families such as hers to this dangerous terrain. The author takes us through her childhood to the moment when, in 1936, she left Australia with her young American husband, giving us not only an autobiographical account but an insight into her homeland. Joan Colebrook is author of All that seemed final, The Northerner, The Cross of Lassitude and The Innocence of the West.