Beyond the Black Stump

The expression “beyond the black stump” refers to the deepest, darkest wilds of the Australian outback, the setting for Nevil Shute’s novel of a romance tested by cultural difference. Stanton Laird is an American geologist sent to hunt oil in a remote part of Western Australia. There he befriends the highly unconventional Regan family, the rough-and-tumble owners of a million-acre sheep station, and falls in love with their daughter Mollie. However, when Mollie goes to join him in America, the y