Dirt Music

Lu is a sensitive, observant, and caring 30-something man who has had a hard life, bad luck, and deep loss. He is a lover of poetry, literature, and music, and he is a deep thinker.

At the novel’s opening, Lu is a shamateur, or an illegal fisherman, in White Point, Australia. He lives a life of solitude, and his dog is his only companion. When he meets Georgie, he is incapable of surviving the encounter without crying, having gone so long without physical touch or affection. Georgie’s closeness brings him back to life after over a year of solitude after the loss of his family.

Lu lived as caretaker to his niece and nephew in the same home as his brother and sister-in-law. The three adults were in a band playing at small events in White Point. After one such event, their car rolled, killing everyone but Lu. He has lived in the shadow of this loss every day, choosing to stay in a suspended state of grief.

Lu’s mother and father both die tragically in Lu’s youth. His father gets mesothelioma working in asbestos removal in a small mining town. His father believes the world is cruel and unfair, and he dies angry. In contrast, his mother is a lover of beauty and grace, though she died suddenly when a branch impaled her in the crash. Lu is caught between their worldviews and does not come to understand his own outlook until he spends time alone on the island, coping with his memories and loss.

Lu’s realizations about the accident ultimately strike at the thematic core of the novel, which is the search for contentment and love in a world filled with loss and hate. Like the balance he finds between his parents’ worldviews, Lu finds peace by acknowledging that he cannot fall into pessimistic cynicism because at one point, he had true, raw love. A love he calls dirt music, the kind of moments on a veranda with loved ones playing music.

Physically, Lu is tanned and tall, with close-cropped, light brown hair and blue eyes. He has young features, though weathered by a life fishing and toiling under the sun.

Jim is a 48-year-old fisherman who, like his legendary father Bill Buckridge, has earned the respect and fear of the small-town fishing community. He is grey-eyed and stoic, with curly sand-colored hair and a strong, fisherman’s physique. He is a widower who lost his wife to cancer, and his mother at a young age to suicide. He is haunted by the two losses. He has not emotionally dealt with these losses, and as a result, never talks about the past.

Jim has two sons with his now-deceased wife Debbie, who died when the eldest son was eight. Josh is 11 and Brad is nine, and both respect and fear their father but merely tolerate Georgie. Although the family is wealthy, Jim insists his children learn to work and avoid the fishing industry. Despite this, the kids spend their free time around the lagoon.

Jim is the unofficial leader of the fishing town and locals defer to and confide in him, hoping for his luck to rub off in the process. Like his father, he maintains his power through his fishing prowess. Unlike his father, Jim spends the length of the novel trying to make himself a better man so that he can shed his family’s legacy of rage and prove to himself and others that is capable of change.

Jim’s dark secret is that on the night of his firstborn’s birth, he was having sex with Lu’s sister-in-law in Beaver’s junkyard. He believes her bad luck rubbed off on him and that his wife’s death is his fault because of his affair. He has lived with the guilt ever since. He took in Georgie when she was stranded and scared because she showed him pity. He never loved Georgie, though he does like her. He, however, is not afraid to let her go. His transformation from a dangerous, cruel, and fearsome man is made complete when he helps reunite Lu and Georgie.

Beaver is an overweight white male with scraggly hair and questionable hygiene. Although he boasts a rough and unapproachable exterior, he is liked by most of the townspeople.

Beaver’s mysterious past is revealed in bits and pieces throughout the novel. Once a member of a dangerous criminal biker gang, Beaver turned in the biker gang to the authorities and fled. The case flopped and Beaver has been hiding in remote White Point ever since. He runs the town’s gas station and junkyard, which includes a movie rental business and shop.

Midway through the novel, Beaver leaves and returns with Lois, his Vietnamese wife. She stays for only a short time, run off by the cruel racism of the townspeople.

Although it seems everyone in White Point knows Beaver’s secret, it is Jim Buckridge that he fears the most. Buckridge’s loyal army of fishermen will do anything to gain his favor, which keeps Beaver from standing up for Lois, Georgie, or anyone else. In short, he is a prisoner in White Point, like many of the residents.

Rachel and her husband seem new age to the locals, who believe they partake in psychedelic and mood-enhancing substances (though they do not). Rachel is a former social worker who is now White Point’s volunteer ambulance driver. Like many of the locals, Rachel has considered leaving White Point, but she cannot make her husband leave because of his love for the sea. Her son, too, is a surfer with an attachment to the ocean. Like Beaver, she’s trapped in White Point.

Shover McDougall is revealed as the man responsible for killing Lu’s dog and shooting his car. In time, Georgie learns that it was likely Shover’s wife who was responsible for telling the townspeople, including Jim Buckridge, about Georgie and Lu’s affair. Shover took action to save Jim embarrassment, and to send a message to Lu, the final member of the Fox family, so he knows he is not welcome in White Point.

Midway through the novel, Shover’s wife Avid blows a tire on the road with her daughter Charlotte in the car. The vehicle rolls over her arm, and Georgie is the first on the scene. She comforts and helps Avid, while the woman goes on a racist rant about the good old days.

A national flag appears above the heavily fortified McDougall compound, which Georgie learns is a call for a return to a time before Asian tourists swarmed the beaches and encroached on their land. The irony is lost on the McDougalls that the town only exists because of the airfreight fish shipments to Japan.

The Fox family is known for having bad luck. They are not liked by the townspeople and live as outcasts outside of White Point in a run-down farmhouse. Lu’s father developed mesothelioma in the mines in north Australia and dies a slow, painful death. His mother, an optimist and lover of nature, dies suddenly when a tree snaps and impales her. Their eldest son Darkie, his wife, and two children, all die in a roll-over accident late at night. Only Lu survives.

Darkie Fox is Lu’s older brother, a sensational musician but a lackluster father, brother, and spouse. Although Lu idolizes him, he comes to realize that Darkie lived only to play music with his wife Sal. He does not show up for parent conferences for his children, and does not cook, clean, or take care of the children. He seems incapable or unwilling to grow out of adolescence. In his courtship with Sal, he often has sex with her in front of Lu, who was stung by the cruelty.

Sal Fox is Darkie’s beautiful, blonde wife. She is mother to Bullet and Bird, though they hardly interact. Like Darkie, she is a talented musician who sings as well as plays mandolin. She has an affair with Jim Buckridge that lasts only one night and has sex in front of Lu many times.

Bullet Fox is the nine-year-old son of Darkie and Sal, and Lu’s nephew. He is a typical outdoor boy, covered in dirt and busy collecting bugs or throwing stones.

Bird Fox is the six-year-old daughter of Darkie and Sal, and Lu’s beloved niece. At night, she wets the bed and goes to Lu for help. He is more of a father to her than her father, and she confides in and is comforted by Lu. She leaves little notes that say SORRY under the house, which Lu finds after her death.

Before the novel’s opening, Georgie and her American boyfriend Tyler Hampton pilot a boat around Northwest Australia, marooning in low tide. It is Red Hopper, a fisherman from a nearby town, who pulls them out. Years later when searching for Lu, it is again Red who comes to their aid. He is said to be a “man’s man,” open-minded and able to manage the behaviors of other men. He is a fishing guide who takes primarily tourists out on the water to catch record-breaking fish. When Lu robs his supply cave, Hopper can only laugh and be impressed with Lu’s ability to survive in the wild.