Locust Summer by David Allan-Petale, Fremantle Press

Powerfully poignant, beautifully crafted debut about a journalist who takes three weeks from his Perth newspaper to help his family with harvest on their WA wheat belt and sheep farm. Good to see city hands at work, Dad would say. A photograph shows late brother Albert – the natural heir to the farm – standing right-hand man to Dad, Rowan to the left of Mum. “Dad’s in no shape to lead this one,” she’s told her city son. “On the land the earth spins steady, the moon rises, and all crops grow: wheat, sheep, dementia.”