Juice assessment: Tim Winton’s post-apocalyptic new novel is terrifying and sensible

Juice
Tim Winton (Picador)

The most recent novel by Tim Winton (twice shortlisted for the Booker prize) is Juice, and it begins in a deceptively acquainted, even clichéd vogue. A person and a younger woman in a futuristic, pimped-up car are crossing a post-apocalyptic Australian outback. Even in the actual world, the outback holds many risks for the unprepared. Winton’s fictional, far-future outback is so sizzling and ruined that it’s barely survivable even for the extraordinarily skilled and well-prepared man on the wheel. And the woman…