Abbott’s vision of rural Australia is stark and confronting; it is a place of decay and grief; where men hanging from their necks in sheds is ‘just a thing that happened’. Abbott can also be sharply satirical. News reports of mass deaths are forgotten endnotes among sausage sizzle day announcements and PSA’s reminding viewers to take their ‘Vitamin D Every Day Twice A Day’. The narrative works best when Abbott reveals her world in discreet fragments, or when her focus rests on the intimate relationships that make up her novel. At times, however, the narrative stalls under the weight of needless exposition, such as the inexplicably detailed chronicling of Myamba’s supermarket.

A hurried final act leaves questions unanswered, or worse, forgotten. It means that the promise of Abbott’s darkly imaginative world isn’t fully satisfied. Overall, though, Closing Down remains an arresting vision of survival and resilience in a broken world.