Carpentaria is an epic novel set in the Gulf country of north western Queensland. The novel's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria.