There has been much made of Juice being a departure for Winton and there’s no denying that this is a different setting to most of his work: the small towns of present day Western Australia. This is set in the ravaged future, but the writing is classic Winton. The location does seem to still be WA, with a rich, if tortured, setting with human relationships at its core. These are mostly familial: a boy and his mother, a child and her carer, two parents and a young child – all recognisable and all rich with the complexities of those relations under the duress of environmental disaster.
Read more →