A Shepherd from Mercy to The Long Paddock is the kind of story that feels carved from the land itself, red dust, cold mornings, the smell of lanolin and chalk.

Ross Cooper's life begins within the stone walls of a Mercy orphanage, where obedience is demanded and tenderness is rationed. Escaping into the world of men's work, shearing, droving, surviving, he discovers a different kind of faith: one born of mateship, hardship, and the slow education of the soul.

By the time Ross stands at the blackboard of a bush school, chalk dust on his hands instead of blood, he's learned that wisdom doesn't come from sermons or scripture, but from listening, to the land, to the people forgotten by it, and to the silence between them.

Max Barrington's prose is both muscular and lyrical, echoing Paterson's romance and Winton's humanity. A Shepherd from Mercy to The Long Paddock is not just one man's journey, it's the story of a nation growing up the hard way.