Roderick Makim

Popinjay's Beverage Emporium Roderick Makim

Who would you be, if you could live forever?Things are pretty bleak out at Arthur's Crossing and its almost abandoned satellite village, McAllister. The heat and humidity of a Gulf of Carpentaria November saps the life from everything, and violence lies heavy on the air. Cattle and hope die alike in the parched, baking paddocks...and in the shadows, monsters lurk. Despite all this, a young man hitchhiking across Australia finds the experience of a lifetime here. He meets the strangest people he has ever encountered anywhere in his travels - Herculaneum, Polaris and Sonny. They claim to be thousands of years old - low-level mythological creatures who never made it into any myths, and they invite him into their world. An eclectic tale, Popinjay's Beverage Emporium weaves folklore, mythology and history from all corners of the world along with a very real glimpse of life in a struggling small town in Outback Australia - weighed down by drought and drained by the steady decline of population and services. By turns comedic, terrifying, tragic, and triumphant, Popinjay's Beverage Emporium is both an outlandish fireside yarn and a thoughtful examination of ideas of, friendship, power, politics, inclusiveness and prejudice, and the choices we make about who we are.