Author Description

Lantana, bushy and massive, is Australia's most uncontrollable tropical weed. Inland from the Pacific coast, where the pineapple plantations grow, the lantana sprawls luxuriously. Here, too, putting up a constant fight against the weed, is the small farming community of Lantana Lane. Though they determinedly declare that farming means drudgery, misery, penury, monotony, bankruptcy and calamity - that it is, in short, a fool's game - they are all firmly and happily wedded to the land, and therefore, naturally, to the lantana. From Aunt Isabelle, part-pioneer, part-Parisienne, to Nelson the one-eyed kookaburra bird, each of the Lane's inhabitants makes their own inimitable contribution to this engaging and witty portrait of community life.