The novel follows Jean Finnegan, a sensible and appealing young seamstress who, when the story opens in 1934, has earned a billet in the women's car at the rear of the Better Farming Train that tours Victoria, bringing agricultural science to the man-on-the-land. The rest of the train consists of 14 cars, each dedicated to some aspect of farm labour - a pig car, a cattle car, a sheep car, a wheat car, even a chicken-sexing car run by world-famous Japanese chicken-sexer Mr Ohno, whose admiration manages to unsettle Jean despite his almost non-existent English.The Age, 13 August 2005, review by Judith Armstrong
