Shaun Prescott has a knack for eerie mundanity — or should it be mundane eeriness? Like The Town, Bon and Lesley is set in a disappearing central western NSW town, but instead of the town literally disappearing, the town of Newnes is being vacated, abandoned and burned as a result of a widespread end-of-times scenario.

Bon and Lesley are two train passengers who become stranded in Newnes and form a makeshift family with local brothers Steven and Jack while trying to be better versions of their city selves and Lesley, at least, attempts to construct something to attach her hopes to in a futureless world.

I don't feel like recounting the plot really does justice to the way Prescott ilustrates the absolute averageness of his characters and their inner monologues (so unremarkable as to be quite strange, but so relatable in how they feebly navigate the non-negotiables of life) while creating a kind of ashen, deadened magic that circulates in the forgotten country towns he builds in his stories.

No other books leave me with the feeling that Prescott's do. Might go and re-read The Town now to keep it hanging around.