No Church in the Wild

(Paperback)

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It's been five long years since violence erupted between young migrants and local police in Melbourne's inner west. A police-led trip to hike the Kokoda Trail hopes to rebuild relationships in the community, but as training gets underway, fresh allegations of racial profiling have everyone on a knife-edge. For wannabe rapper Ali, pride is hard to come by in the commission towers as both gentrification and his best friend's court date creep closer. Classmate Tyler's anger - at his dysfunctional family, and a world that denies his dreams - is close to ignition, and the way out is dangerously narrow. Young and idealistic teacher Anna's life is in disarray, but she knows she has to take a stand against the school system that's failing her students. And Paul, a cop new to the beat, quickly realises that it'll take a lot more than community policing to repair the mutual mistrust with local youth. From the vial-studded stairs of the high-rises to the melting pot classrooms of secondary schools, to the mud-sucking jungle of Kokoda, No Church in the Wild is a deeply researched, richly imagined novel that interrogates the jaggedness of contemporary Australian society and the prejudices that still underpin it.

Author Bio

Murray Middleton is a Melbourne-based writer who spent eight years working in the city's education system. His first collection of stories, When There's Nowhere Else to Run, won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award and was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. He is also a winner of The Age Short Story Award. In 2016, Murray was named Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelist. He currently restrings tennis racquets for a living.