I'd gone along there, as a Pommy writer passing through, to do a quick interview and be asked how I thought I could get to the bottom of the place if I was passing through so quickly. You are always asked this by Australians. They can't believe that you have come to their country and aren't prepared to give at least seven years of your life to savouring the distinctive flavour, fathoming the peculiar mystery, of every one-horse town the bus happens to spill you out in. Australia: the sixth largest country in the world — and most of it empty. Of the inhabited continents, it has the driest, hottest and harshest terrain. Undaunted, and somewhat bemused by the challenge, Howard Jacobson set off on an adventure around Australia — all the way around. Travelling across Darwin, the Kimberleys, Perth, Kalgoorlie, Alice Springs, the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney and almost every one-horse, godforsaken town in between, Jacobson attempts to find out exactly what it is that makes the people of Australia tick. Along the way, he ponders questions of Aboriginal land rights, national identity, and the most flummoxing matter of all: the Australian male. Peppered with brilliantly witty observations and larger-than-life characters, In the Land of Oz is a wry, incisive and hugely affectionate portrait of life Down Under.
