In the dying town of Drylands, Janet Deakin sells papers to lonely locals. At night, in her flat above the newsagency, she attempts to write a novel for a world in which no one reads -- 'full of people, she envisaged, glaring at a screen that glared glassily back.' Drylands is the story of the townsfolk's harsh, violent lives. Trenchant and brilliant, Thea Astley's final novel is a dark portrait of outback Australia in decline.