Previous
Prologue
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dry, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Human Cost of Climate Change
Justice
Urban vs. Rural
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Kiewarra’s local church is full of mourners, with members of the media nearby. Aaron Falk, a blond, 36-year-old man from Melbourne, pulls up at the church. He finds it smaller than he remembered. In the church are three coffins, two of them full sized and one smaller. Pictures of the dead hang next to their names: Luke, Karen, and Billy Hadler.
Falk, the protagonist of the novel, is both an outsider and an insider, having grown up in Kiewarra but also having lived in a big city. This passage puts names to the faces of the victims featured in the prologue. While the prologue suggested that death is common and inevitable during the drought, the first chapter focuses on the victims’ humanity and shows how it can still be tragic.
Themes
A man asks Falk if he knows any of the dead. Falk says he was friends with Luke as a kid but hasn’t lived in Kiewarra for a long time. Falk explains that he’s now a police officer in Melbourne but is only coming back to the funeral as a friend, not to investigate (since he typically works in financial crime).
With his focus on financial crime, not homicide, Falk makes for a somewhat unconventional protagonist in a detective novel. His financial expertise suggests that money and economic issues will be important to the current case, even though Falk hasn’t agreed to investigate anything yet.
Themes
Falk sees Luke’s father, Gerry Hadler, in the back of the church and notices that Gerry is staring at him. Two days ago, Falk received a note from Gerry that read “Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral.” Falk has to look away.
Gerry’s note provides the first complication to the mystery. By accusing Falk of lying, Gerry seems to be insinuating that he’s capable of blackmailing Gerry. Gerry’s conventional behavior at the funeral contrasts with his potentially sinister side, giving an early example of how people in Kiewarra keep secrets.
Themes
Later, Falk struggles to watch the slideshow of photos of Luke and Karen when they were younger. Falk is surprised when he sees himself in a photo with Luke when they were both teenagers, Luke with his arm around a blonde girl and Falk with his around a dark-eyed girl with long black hair (Ellie Deacon). Two months after that photo, the dark-eyed girl was dead.
This photograph is the first depiction of events from 20 years ago, when Falk used to live in Kiewarra. In this case, the past and the present intertwine, and so while a murder 20 years ago might not seem relevant to the current case, it continues to impact Kiewarra, which is small enough that everyone knows one another.
Themes
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Another photo in the slideshow depicts Luke and Karen’s wedding, which Falk was invited to but didn’t attend. Later photos show the birth of Billy and later Charlotte (the 13-month-old baby who survived the murders). Falk thinks back to Gerry’s note and recalls a pact he made with Luke 20 years ago, shortly after the death of the Ellie, and he wonders if Ellie’s death and its aftermath have anything to do with the present murders.
Falk’s memories about making a pact with Luke suggest that perhaps he is hiding a secret that Gerry could expose to the world if he wanted. The novel’s narration carefully reveals some information while concealing other facts, and so even though Falk is the novel’s protagonist, he has many secrets, including what role he may or may not have had in Ellie’s death.
Themes
