'Reality fiction' and the Great Barrier Reef

Abstract

Di Morrrissey is one of Australia's most widely-read writers of popular fiction. Her special twist on the mode is to choose a particular setting and research it deeply, often living in the area for a time. Her thirteenth novel, The Reef (Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2004) is set on Branch Island "named because it was an island sprouting right from a limb of the Great Barrier reef (135), somewhere east of "Headland Bay" which, when described (133-34) suggests a hybrid Cairns/Cardwell/Port Douglas, actual towns spread along Australia's North Queensland coast, which is paralleled by the Great Barrier Reef. As we shall see, Morrissey has embedded authentic description of the Great Barrier Reef into the novel, and dramatized contemporary issues relating to its use and conservation, as part of her strategy of imbuing the novel with verisimilitude.