The Sinkings

The Sinkings (2008, UWA Publishing)

Perhaps the name that matters is not the one we were born to but the one we choose for ourselves.

In 1882, a dismembered body was discovered at a lonely campsite called the Sinkings. The remains were identified at autopsy as those of a woman, but later the victim was recognised as Little Jock. More than a hundred years later, grieving mother Willa Samson becomes obsessed with the story of this sandalwood carter and former convict who might have been a woman.

An unforgettable story about the ways cruelty and ignorance, kindness and empathy mark individuals and histories. • Simone Lazaroo

Cool, musical and mysterious … an effortless novelistic debut • The Weekend Australian

Curtin disarms the reader in large part because of the beauty of the writing. • The Australian Literary Review

The Sinkings is, as much as anything else, a beautiful and haunting story about violence, obsession, secrecy, longing, hardship and escape. Yet it is also one of human resilience. • Reviews in Australian Studies

The Sinkings is a calm, closely worked performance, artfully sustained … the work of a writer in command both of her prose and of the intricate, unconsoling story that she tells. • Canberra Times

The Sinkings deals with intersexuality in an intelligent, compassionate, and not at all false way … It’s a powerful, intricate work. • Bookslut

ISBN 978 1 921401 11 4

Link here to a version of a talk on ‘History, fiction and “truth” in The Sinkings’

Resources for students studying The Sinkings here

View an archival map of the murder site here

Listen here to an episode of ‘History Repeated’, a collaboration between ABC Radio and the State Records Office of WA, on The Sinkings—just scroll down the list to find the episode