AS anyone familiar with grain harvests at farming enterprises knows, the annual event ultimately brings with it plenty of challenges, hardships and triumphs.
So it is hardly surprising that Western Australian author David Allan-Petale centred his debut novel, Locust Summer, on the final harvest on a property in the fictional Wheatbelt town of Septimus.
- Subscribers have access to download our free app today from the App Store or Google Play
A WA Academy of Performing Arts-trained former broadcast journalist, Mr Allan-Petale has drawn on his experiences working in regional WA for GWN News and the ABC, as well as personal life experiences, to create a story that is "from him, not of him".
Growing up in the northern suburbs of Perth, he was always interested in reading and writing, reading everything he could get his hands on while also writing little stories.
Mr Allan-Petale had a grandfather who had a big influence on his life, always taking he and his sister on adventures to "expand their minds", whether that be attending different cultural events, film festivals or the Dowerin Machinery Field Days.
"He wanted to expand our minds and to help us foster an interest in the world around us," Mr Allan-Petale said.
That translated into him being somewhat prepared for his first job when he landed at GWN in Geraldton aged 21, where he was responsible for travelling the entire Mid West region with his 19-year-old cameraman on the hunt for stories.
"We would drive around for days at a time looking for people to talk to," he said.
"I had a lot of contact with farmers, particularly around the Mullewa, Mingenew, Carnamah areas.
"As a child I had always been fascinated by how people lived, and I took that curiosity into the job - I would see the world around me, and see who I could meet and chat to, especially at harvest time."
The opportunity to not only talk about harvest but experience it in a hands-on way arose in 2005, when Mr Allan-Petale was based in the beautiful red dirt country of Kalgoorlie for the ABC.
READ MORE:
"As it turned out the GWN journalist also based in Kalgoorlie was from a farming family in New South Wales and would return home each year to help with harvest," he said.
"He spoke in almost Henry Lawson-esque terms about the farm, and how they would bring in the harvest.
"I was 24 and up for some adventure, so I asked him if I could come."
When the time came, he took three weeks off work and headed for the wheat-growing region of Coonamble in NSW.
He looked the part, decked out in his brand-new King Gee pants and shiny work boots, but was soon playing the part, doing everything he could possible to help get the wheat crop off, whether it was driving the chaser bin or diesel truck, or making lunches for the crew.
It was anything but uneventful, with Mr Allan-Petale recalling a harvest that had everything from lightning strikes and fires, to covering grain with tarpaulins to protect it from rain, to playing two-up at the pub at the end of the day.
"That harvest was special, it had such a huge community aspect to it, and it also was such a big crop, whereas the property experienced droughts in the ensuing years - there wasn't really another one like it, and I was so fortunate to experience it," he said.
"It was a transcendent experience, I came away from it glowing, and it's always stuck in the back of my mind."
When his beloved grandfather began to show signs of dementia, Mr Allan-Petale said the two ideas came together, and resulted in Locust Summer.
The story is based in 1986 and tells of main character Rowan Brockman returning to the family farm for one last harvest at the request of his mother who is preparing the farm for sale.
His brother Albert, who was to inherit the farm, has died, while his father's health is failing.
Mr Allan-Petale said he had tried to create something that was honest and real, not romantic or confrontational.
But while it all came together, writing about a young guy not wanting to go back to the family farm for harvest, which was really flipping the experience of his friend who wanted to go home and help, it was by no means autobiographical.
"It comes alive and grows its own needs, and I really just go from that," he said.
"It was from me but not of me - sometimes I would read it back and I don't remember how I did it, it came from a different part of my soul."
And just like farming, the writing of Locust Summer took time - nine years in fact.
Mr Allan-Petale started the story in 2012 and continued to write over the ensuing years while travelling overseas, but wrote the ending while travelling through the Wheatbelt in a caravan with his wife and baby daughter.
"I typed "the end" while sitting on a beach at Kalbarri," he said.
Published by Fremantle Press in 2021, his book has been long-listed for the 2021 Australian Literary Gold Medal and short-listed for the 2022 WA Premier's Book Awards for an emerging author, and is set to be released as an audio book early next year.
Mr Allan-Petale said while it had been really cool seeing his book on bookshelves, it had been even more amazing to see it on library shelves.
"My mum used to take me to the library every two weeks as a child, and to see my book on one of those shelves now is even better, because I know anyone can access it," he said.
Another unexpected side-effect had been the letters that he had received from people who had read Locust Summer and written to him about their own life experiences.
Although Mr Allan-Petale enjoyed his time in TV and radio, it was the writing of the scripts and links that he always loved most.
"It was always print journalists and their way with the written word that fascinated me the most," he said.
He became a student of etymology, the study of the origin of words, and collected words in his notebook to enable him to weave into his fiction at a later time.
"I love learning the argot of different professions, there is such a specificity of their individual languages that is beautiful, it is an amazing thing," he said.