Troppo

Indonesia, November, 2004: after the Bali and Denpasar bombings; just before the Boxing Day tsunami. Penny has escaped the confines of life in Perth and gone to East Java to reconnect with the Indo of her teenage years: to drift and drink and party. She�s flirting and surfing with the wild man Matt and she�s also taken a job at Shane�s Sumatran Oasis. The Aussie expat has a reputation as a troublemaker, and locals and bule (foreigners) alike are keen to get rid of him. Penny is pulled into a sinister world where xenophobia is on the rise and where two very different cultures will collide. A novel about how Australians see their relationship to Indonesia at a time when fundamentalism and terrorism is on the rise. but in fact / we are as we are / together, alone, as you can see, / with elusive memories for company, /with your wisps of hair / disappearing as gently as breath. 'After Chemo' Ahead of Us is Dennis Haskell's eighth book of poetry. Dedicated to his wife Rhonda, who lost her battle with cancer after a long illness, Ahead of Us contains poems of love, of two people forging a partnership together and of the inevitable end of that partnership when one person dies. It is a celebration of life and and of the fragile thread that holds us here.