Diamonds in the mud and other stories. Joy Dettman. 2006.

At the beginning of Joy Dettman’s writing journey, her charming, irascible, melancholy, wisecracking characters appeared in over twenty unique tales, many of which have won awards, many of which have never been published. Now, for the first time, Diamonds in the Mud and other Stories is the complete collection of Joy Dettman’s exquisite short stories.

We meet an old coot in a rusty Ute who picks up a hitchhiker, a neighbour reaches across the language divide to lend a helping hand, a grave digger might just have saved a young man’s life, an exhausted farmer’s wife lusts after a china cup, Granny Jordan is losing her marbles and an author is disturbed by rats under the floorboards.