Dirt Music

Georgie, the heroine of the book, becomes fascinated while watching a stranger attempting to poach fish in an area where nobody can maintain secrets for very long; disillusioned with her relationship with the local fisherman legend Jim Buckridge, she contrives a meeting with the stranger and soon passion runs out of control between two bruised and emotionally fragile people.

The secret quickly becomes impossible to hide, and Jim wants revenge, whilst the poacher hikes north via Wittenoom (out of respect for his father who died of mesothelioma in the town) and Broome to an island off the remote coast of Kimberley beyond Kununurra to escape a confrontation. His subsequent struggles to survive in the hostile environment, knowing that he must try to literally cover his tracks, give this book its gripping denouement.[2]

A review by Leigh Mytton on the BBC describes Winton's characterisation as 'incisive" that he "intersperses raw and vernacular language with lyrical passages ... Throughout the novel, it is the indomitable force of nature that pervades."[3]

Paul Daley in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote, "Dirt Music is an Australian novel. But it's not gentle or tame and there's nothing quaint about it. Family dysfunction, loneliness and alcoholism in Winton's part of the world - the harsh, beautiful West Australian coast - are among the elements of this raw, tender and disquieting love story."[4]

Jules Smith for the British Council writes that in Dirt Music Tim Winton, "brings his human and environmental themes together in ways that are always intensely realized and touching".[5]

• 2001 Western Australian Premier's Book Award Premier's Prize - Book of Year[6]
• 2001 Western Australian Premier's Book Award Premier's Prize - Fiction[6]
• 2001 Good Reading Award, 2001[6]
• 2002 Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award[6]
• 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist)[7]
• 2002 Miles Franklin Award[8]
• 2002 New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction[6]
• 2002 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, Fiction, 2002 – shortlist[6]

Tim Winton and Lucky Oceans chose the music for the book's "soundtrack". Released in CD form in Australia in 2001, the two disc set includes both bluegrass and classical music. The music is embodied by a quote from the book: "Anything you could play on a verandah. You know, without electricity. Dirt music."[9]

A film adaptation of Dirt Music was in development, to be directed by Phillip Noyce in 2009.[10] By 2014, Noyce admitted that 'I could never get a script that I thought captured the poetry of the novel, and there’s the problem. A poetic novel is just difficult to translate into a movie. It’s a project I’ll come back to I’m sure in the future.'[11]

In September 2019 a Gregor Jordan directed film adaptation was released "[12] with Kelly Macdonald and Garrett Hedlund in the lead roles.

• Personal Trauma/Historical Trauma in Tim Winton’s Dirt Music | Barbara Arizti - Academia.edu