The second half of the book is mainly set in Australia and concerns the narrator's trying to find the address of a girl (referred to only as 'the girl from Bendigo Street') he once knew as a child. Gunnarsen lives with her husband in Ideal, South Dakota, where they are both working at the Calvin O. The early parts of the book are set in Szolnok County, Hungary, where the narrator is writing in 'heavy-hearted Magyar' to his editor and translator, Anne Kristaly Gunnarsen. Inland has been described as a complex work of fiction, lacking plot and characters in the traditional sense. Ī quote of this passage (from the English translation of A Puszták népe) appears towards the end of Inland itself. And it occurs in numerous places, as you've said, in other books and things I have written. And I wrote the book Inland and the well just keeps occurring – I don't go looking for it, it comes looking for me. – that's the cowherds pulled her out when they watered the cattle at dawn section. It caused me to learn the Hungarian language, for one thing, and to be able to quote the whole of that passage in Hungarian. Of all the images that I have in mind, that one has probably has yielded the most and has perhaps even still the most to yield. In a 2014 interview, Murnane described one passage in particular as having changed his life, a passage describing cowherds pulling the body of a young woman out of a well:

The book had such a profound effect on him that it not only made him learn the Hungarian language, but also compelled him to write a book – Inland – in order to 'relieve feelings', as he later put it. In 1977, Murnane read A Puszták népe ( People of the Puszta) by the Hungarian poet and novelist Gyula Illyés. Typical draw well in the Puszta in Hortobágy National Park

Inland by Gerald Murnane