The Vintage and the Gleaning by Jeremy Chambers

The Vintage and the Gleaning

Jeremy Chambers

A simple story. Moving between the vineyards and bars of rural Australia, rich in dialogue and evoking a strong sense of place is the story of Smithy and Charlotte. Brought together by circumstances at something of a crossroads for both, lives are made sense of and decisions made.

Extract
More men, more voices, noise rising, low and dull, but growing loud all the same. They stand at the bar, sit on stools, flicking glowing cigarette butts into the trough at the bottom of the bar, the trough smouldering, resting their elbows against the brass pole that runs flush with the bar, the plating scratched and gouged through to the steel by the knives of men bored or angry or just drunk and the many silver cuts flash along the pole and the men lean against it, pots in their hands, pots on the bar towel, pots on the cardboard coasters with the emblems of breweries going sodden from running suds and they take off their hats, weary from the day.
Parallels
  • The Turning by Tim Winton
  • Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
  • Martha, Jack and Shanco by Caryl Lewis