The Fringe Dwellers

Two sisters, Noonah and Trilby are young, beautiful – and part aboriginal. The grim alternatives before them are those that most white Australians do not even know about let alone have to face.

The brawling squalor of the camp, the neat ghetto of the Reserve, a bottle of conto and quick love in the sandhills. Noonah is happy to flop back, Trilby has the fire to drive her on. But to what?

Nene Gare is as honest as she is sympathetic, and around the two girls she gives a wonderful picture of the warm, crude but sensitive Come-away family and their friends and ‘lations.

Nene Gare has lived most of her life in Western Australia, and has travelled extensively throughout the State obtaining first hand knowledge of the subject matter she deals with so skilfully in this novel.

Her husband is Commissioner for Native Welfare in Western Australia and she has lived for periods in Carnarvon and Geraldton.