{"id":41421,"date":"2025-08-11T09:25:53","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T15:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=41421"},"modified":"2025-08-11T09:25:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T15:25:53","slug":"the-cutters-by-brad-collis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=41421","title":{"rendered":"The Cutters by Brad Collis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Spare, unsentimental, and deeply resonant; a layered portrait of resilience.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collis’s latest is a quietly powerful novel of postwar survival set against the harsh beauty of rural Western Australia. Two years after returning from Vietnam, Matthew Walker is still caught in the war\u2019s undertow. The life he left behind has shifted without him, and his place in it feels lost. Hoping to rebuild, he heads to Hammond, a small farming town, to work for the Hammond Herald. A blown tyre on the way leads to his first meeting with Pete Glencross, a weathered share farmer whose fight is with the land, the markets, and the wealthy graziers who shape the district\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collis draws Hammond with an unsentimental eye. The town\u2019s social order is fixed, its hierarchies inherited along with acreage. Fitting in demands the same tactical awareness Matthew learned in the army\u2014alliances are sealed over beer and football loyalties, and stepping out of place can carry a cost. Through Pete\u2019s blunt talk, Matthew comes to see the slow erasure of small farms under the \u201cget big or get out\u201d mantra, a policy enriching a few while hollowing the rest. Collis layers this with a quieter history\u2014the absence of the Aboriginal people, their story erased, mirroring other silences the town prefers to keep. Collis\u2019s prose is spare and the dialogue steeped in rural rhythms. The novel ends without tidy closure. Matthew does not fully breach Hammond\u2019s social walls, nor leave the past behind. But he endures, and in Collis\u2019s world, that is its own kind of victory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taut, understated, and raw, this is a winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Buy now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pub date March 11, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISBN 979-8309859016<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price $14.50 (USD) Paperback, $3.87 Kindle edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spare, unsentimental, and deeply resonant; a layered portrait of resilience. Collis’s latest is a quietly powerful novel of postwar survival set against the harsh beauty of rural Western Australia. Two years after returning from Vietnam, Matthew Walker is still caught in the war\u2019s undertow. The life he left behind has shifted without him, and his place in it feels lost. Hoping to rebuild, he heads to Hammond, a small farming town, to work for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":41424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[7223,91,3328,178,723771082,1747,4405817,1136176,1473,1008073,856121,309,723771083,349],"class_list":["post-41421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-author","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-brad-collis","tag-fiction","tag-fiction-book-review","tag-indie-books","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-the-cutters","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-aM5","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cutters.jpg?fit=292%2C445&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41421"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41425,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41421\/revisions\/41425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}