Loretta describes herself disparagingly as "an old scrag" at all of thirty. Don't believe a word of it. She is a fierce, funny fighter, living in a tiny Australian town which is short of jobs, services and husbands. After 10 years of marriage her husband drove off and never came back.

I really enjoyed this story of a woman fighting to save the local school and other services in the town, standing up for what she believes in and trying to resist the slide into total cynicism and apathy. I'd hate to live in Gunapan, but I'd love to meet Loretta, her kids, and her friend Norm who owns the junkyard.

Reviewed for Amazon Vine January 2012 ( )

(6.5) I picked this up for a light and easy read and that it is. It reminds me of Bridget Jones meets Erin Brockovich. A crusading solo mother of two children who dreams of escaping her life in a beemer or on the back of a Harley. None the less she loves her kids and her close friends and throws her all into saving the local school from closure and discovering who is behind the new development which threatens the town water supply, ( )

Epigraph: The Japanese have a word, sabi, which connotes the simple beauty of worn and imperfect and impermanent things: a weathered fence; an old cracking bough in a tree; a silver bowl mottled with tarnish; the fine color of rust.

Loretta Boskovic has been abandoned by her husband and left in a small dusty Australian town with her two children. Her imaginary life, where she leaves her children at an orphanage and meets Mr Beemer, or Mr Harley, competes with the realism of small town life with kids she loves even though they are not perfect, and good friends, including Norm Stevens, father figure and adopted grandfather to her kids. O'Reilly has not only painted an excellent picture of the small Australian town but created wonderful characters who come alive. The topics that spur Loretta's activism are common enough: single parenting, injustice, political intrigue, told with humour but without turning it into a comedy. I enjoyed this book enormously. ( )

I've long thought that if I was to move out of this country, Australia would be an appealing place to go. This is based on zero actual knowledge whatsoever but because it has so long been true (I first fell in love with the country long distance at the ripe old age of nine via my long-time Aussie penpal), I have always gravitated to books set in Australia or that sought to explain that sunburned country to me. And so I have read both Australian fiction and non-fiction extensively despite the logistical difficulty and prohibitive cost of getting my hands on some of these books. So when I saw that The Fine Color of Rust, published here in the US, was set in a small, dusty, Australian country town, peopled with typically Australian characters, and being called very Australian in outlook and humor, I knew I would have to read it.

Loretta Boskovic is a single mother living in the sun-baked, hardscrabble small town of Gunapan. Still married, her good-for-nothing ex rode off into the sunset long ago leaving her with their two kids in this struggling provincial town, not a place she ever envisioned ending up. Loretta has gotten involved in the life of the community, made-up of many single women like herself by starting the Save Our School committee in an effort to forestall their tiny school's threatened closure. As she seeks to help the town, both through her efforts on behalf of the school and eventually through her uncovering of a secretively planned resort development that would not in fact bring any tourism to the town but would cut off access to the only local spring around, Loretta learns a lot about herself and about living a happy and fulfilled life.

Loretta has an active imaginary life, coming up with scenario after scenario where she is swept away from her restricted life in Gunapan by a knight in shining armor (or just a hot guy on a Harley). Her kids Melissa and Jake are stroppy and waiting for their deadbeat father to return. Her closest friend is crusty local junkman Norm who brings her a pair of goats, Terror and Panic, when Loretta is in desperate need of a lawnmower. She's a self-deprecating, self-described "old scrag" with a dry wit and a strong sense of right and wrong. There are some wonderfully humorous scenes in the book crowned by the taking of the Education Minister to the local abattoir to watch their speediest butcher deconstruct a cow where the shell-shocked politician comes away from the "amusement" rather speckled with raw meat. But there are some poignant scenes too where it is clear that the town and, in some ways, Loretta too, is really only held together with a wing and a prayer and probably some baling wire too.

O'Reilly has created an authentic and warmly entertaining story about a woman learning to bloom where she's planted. The characters are quirky and delightful and the sorts of people you'd want in your own corner as friends. The pace of the novel is consistently steady as Loretta slowly uncovers the things she needs to know to have a chance at saving Gunapan and her outrage that so many other people in this small town already knew what she was searching for is perfectly presented. The fact of her accidental activism; the demands of her family, especially once ex Tony reappears; and trying to balance a semblence of a personal life for herself always rings true. A delightful, very Australian David and Goliath story, this novel will keep the reader turning pages, chuckling wryly, and recognizing and appreciating the universality behind its themes of reliance on friendship and dedication to community. ( )

I loved everything about this book, beginning with its intriguing title. So many of us can relate to Loretta, who desperately loves her children but has wonderful fantasies about the man, various versions of him, whom she is going to meet after she drops the kids off at the orphanage.

Caught up in her small Aussie town's (well, mostly her) attempt to save the local school, she petitions, makes signs, organizes, and becomes someone to generally avoid, even in a town where people cannot easily be avoided. Her sense of humor is delightful. Although Loretta doesn't have it easy, this is not a dark book. At fewer than 300 pages in paperback, it is a quick read and perfect for that feel-good kind of novel in which I love to escape.

Thank you to Atria for providing me with a copy of this book. ( )