"there's too much urban jazz in the air: the drone of jets roaring in, the manic whine of sirens or thumping bass line of neighbour's latest dance-music craze."
"As for Luke, for the first time ever he felt his innate optimism begining to metabolise into something jittery"
"the further away from the city they drove, the more the world expanded into mysterious limbo, a potential space waiting to be filled."
"You looked out to a smoggy curtain across the built-up sky or down a long drop to the bitumen road below."
"Often Luke will carry his coffee out to the rickety Juliet balcony off the attic, for it looks across to the ocean and here he can study the local surfers, those sleek truants of the moment."
"They understand what it means to live on the rim of the driest continent......
".....materialising from out of the cloud like a jaunty mechanical bird"
"the roof groans and she is woken by the sudden slam of doors along the hallway"
"they burn like buggery. Light up like a Christmas tree. Get a firs in these parts an they'll endanger your house"
"there is no wind in the hills and for those few hours Anna feels she might almost regain her old equilibrium"
"meanwhile the smoke cloud is expanding, seeping out into the sky like a release of octopus ink"
