Past the Shallows is set on the southern coast of Tasmania and Bruny Island, a small remote island accessible to the body of Tasmania by ferry. The island is south of Hobart and a gateway to the Tasman Sea. The coast is battered by wild weather generated from Antarctica to the south.
Removed from the Australian mainland, removed from Tasmania’s capital, removed from busy and populous society, the isolated setting of Past the Shallows provides author Favel Parrett with a captive group of subjects to examine: a claustrophobic community whose members know one another’s business and are variously resigned to the isolation or desperately attempting to flee the small town. The town’s isolation cloaks events with secrecy and shapes the lives of the characters, concealing their crimes.

The book pits the group’s fate against nature and compares the ways in which the human experience can fight against or flourish with nature. At its worst, the ocean is unforgiving and fatal, refusing to easily yield its bounty to the struggling abalone divers. Divers risk all to take a few treasures from the ocean bed. At its best, it is peaceful, surfers commune with waves and become part of the force of the ocean, harnessing its beautiful energy. The boys within the novel experience both the brunt and the support of nature, symbolic of the way in which family can offer both. The harsh landscape is reflective of the lack of nurturing provided to the children.

The simplistic way in which time and place is painted and the careful omission of the implicit human condition and experience of the individual characters allow the reader to interpret and construct the breadth of the characters’ experiences. The wild coast and disloyal sea are metaphors that urge readers to use their imagination instead of relying on explicit accounts of the characters’ thoughts and feelings.