Fleeing her cruel husband, 60-year-old Ruby Marie Wilson finds herself broke and living in her car in a strange city with her beloved old Kelpie, Roo. She jumps at a Housing Commission offer of a tower bedsit in cosmopolitan Prahran.

As Ruby searches for meaning in her new world of high-rise compatriots, itinerants, their dogs, public parks and talking trees, she struggles to learn the ropes of living on a pension and mourns her loss of status. She soon makes friends, but just as she begins to feel safe, disaster strikes, causing her to question who she is and what it means to truly belong.

Set in 2004, They Who Nicked the Sun is a touching and often funny story of one woman's journey from violence to peace as she builds a new life.