The White Girl | Tony Birch #AUSfiction

The White Girl by Tony Birch was my August book club choice. 

I'm always a little nervous when it's my turn to pick the book in case it turns out to be a book universally disliked, poorly written or just one of those duds that doesn't spark any kind of joy in anyone.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case with The White Girl.

I was initially concerned for young Sissy, the granddaughter of Odette Brown (our strong, resilient protagonist), early on in the story, that something ghastly would happen to her at the hands of the bullying young men who lived on the nearby farm. I actually had to put the book down for a few days, the fear and anxiety around what could happen to her was too much to think about or read about. 

I am grateful that Birch, ultimately, chose not to go down that road. 

So many awful things did happen, but they happened earlier in the story or off stage so to speak. In some ways this could be seen as an easy way out for the reader. So many young Aboriginal women had to experience and live through what happened to Sissy's mother, and almost happened to her, that making the reader face this fact would have been a valid and historically correct thing to do.

‘Trouble? Our people have been in one sort of trouble or another from the first day we set eyes on a white person’.

But this is a story about strong women and survival and the choices we make. Odette is determined to protect young Sissy in a way she could not protect her own daughter. It's not until she discovers the whole truth about Lila and learns of how the Kane boys are beginning to harass Sissy that Odette makes a huge decision. 

Odette is not a victim, instead she does what needs to be done.

As an early childhood educator with 18 years experience, I taught a number of Indigenous kids with incredibly strong, devoted grandmothers, determined to protect their grandchildren in ways they were unable to protect their own children. The tragedy is that Birch's story, set in a fictional town in 1960's Australia, still felt so relevant for my teaching experiences throughout 1990's, early 2000's Australia.

Initially you could think that Birch's story was fairly simple and straightforward storytelling. However, the simplicity masks deeper layers, subtly explored and exposed. Characters that could be seen as one-dimensional or even a stereotype feel fleshed out by the end of the book.

Birch even gives the awful Kane family some redeeming qualities with the younger son/brother who tries to protect, explain and understand everyone. We become aware of the ghastly childhoods they experienced at the hands of their father, that goes some way towards explaining their awful behaviour. The law and the church could not protect this family of white boys from the horrors of their childhood, yet it believed they could somehow protect and provide for Indigenous kids. 

Birch covers so many difficult, confronting topics, yet it never feels heavy or preachy. The story telling is fierce yet tender and full of hope. His restraint acts as a powerful tool that makes the reader face all the things left unsaid. The story is a beacon of resilience and strength for Indigenous readers and a challenge for non-Indigenous readers to step out in someone else's shoes.

I was trying to find a way to finish this post, when I read Sue @Whispering Gums thoughtful review from last year, She summed up my thoughts so succinctly that I have borrowed (with permission) her final paragraph:

What Birch shows, then, is that survival for indigenous people was (and mostly still is) quite a cat-and-mouse game. It involves “taking a chance with these white people”. This is a risk, Odette and her friends realise, but is often all they have. And that, I think, is the main message Birch wants to leave with his non-indigenous readers. The question is, can we rise to the challenge, and be trusted? Are we prepared to heed the truths being shared? So far, I’d say, the jury is still out.

Facts:

• Birch is a novelist, a short story-writer, poet, academic historian, climate justice-Indigenous rights activist 
• He grew up in inner-city Melbourne with an Aboriginal, Barbadian (convict), Irish and Afghani heritage.
• Birch’s great grandfather on his mother’s side was an Afghani, Bouta Khan, from the Punjab. 
• His great grandfather was James “Prince” Moodie, transported from Barbados to Tasmania.
• Birch spent a decade as a firefighter. 
• When he was 30, he went to the University of Melbourne, as a mature-age student.
• In 2003 he was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal for the best PhD in Arts. 
• He is now the Bruce McGuinness research fellow at Victoria University.
• His work includes climate change research and how it impacts Indigenous communities and people on the margins of society.

Favourite Quote:

After visiting with her parents Odette walked Sissy past the other graves, explaining the connection she had to family and Odette’s childhood friends.
‘You need to know all of these people,’ she said, ‘and you must remember them.’
Sissy looked around at the headstones. ‘There’s a lot of people here, Nan. How will I remember all of them?’
‘Through the stories,’ Odette said. ‘I’m telling them to you, and it will be your job to remember. It’s just like the story in the book you’re reading. The story of the dog from Africa. You told me about that today, and already I can remember it. Our stories are not written in any books, which means you’ll need to keep telling them to your own family one day.’

Book 10 of 20 Books of Summer Winter

The Dyehouse | Mena Calthorpe #AWW

Written with unerring skill and insight, The Dyehouse is a masterly portrait of postwar Australia, when industrial work was radically transformed by new technologies and society changed with it. Mena Calthorpe—who herself worked in a textile factory—takes us inside this world, vividly bringing to life the people of an inner-Sydney company in the mid-1950s: the bosses, middlemen and underlings; their dramatic struggles and their loves.

The inner-city Sydney suburb of Macdonaldtown is the setting for Calthorpe's story about workers in a fictitious textile dyeing factory in 1956. And as Fiona McFarlane reminds us early on in her Introduction: The Art of Work, 'Calthorpe was a socialist, and it's impossible to read The Dyehouse without noticing its political commitment.' This might make for a dry, earnest sort of story in some hands, but Calthorpe is also a humanist. Her characters come alive in a convincing, sympathetic manner. Therefore, this becomes a story about everyday people and how they approach a working life. What it means to them, how it affects them, financially, physically and emotionally and the conditions and expectations that are placed on them by society, religion, family and friends.

Image Source

Every strata of the factory is covered. We meet the bosses, the managers, the office staff, the workers and the cleaners. We see them at work and at home. Calthorpe gives us insights into their thoughts and emotional states. We see their poverty, their dreams and hopes, their despair, fear and pride.

Reading this with a modern sensibility, it comes as a shock to be reminded of times gone by when one's working life was so inflexible and all-encompassing. The days were long, the work was hard, often physically demanding, and the weeks were even longer. It was a time when the worker had almost no rights and no recourse for compensation, compassion or simple leave. A time where all the power was on the side of the bosses, who were more concerned about the bottom line, than the daily lives or well-being of their workers.

This example of the 1950's class and gender divide also reminds us that times may change, but
human nature doesn't. The double standards that applied back then are different now, less obvious perhaps, but they still exist for those who want to see them.

The idea that all progress is good and that growth is inevitable still dictates the way we approach work and our economy. Technology, change, economic rationalisation and personal advancement at the expense of others still divides the bosses from the workers; the haves from the have-nots. Modern worker's may have more rights and avenues for compensation, but loss of work is still the financial and psychological devastation today as it was for Hughie.

I'm extremely grateful that Text Classics rediscovered this lost story about a time and place in Sydney that is now also lost. The old slum terraces may still exist, but they are slums no longer. The occasional smoke stack may still grace the horizon of many an inner-city skyline, but they are now ensconced in modern refurbished, re-purposed renovations. An aesthetic reminder of our industrial past surrounded by coffee shops, restaurants and modern art.

The Dyehouse was a perfect example for Bill @The Australian Legend - Gen III - 1919-1960 - reading week. This era of Australian literature is defined by social realism and modernism. Social Realism 'depicts the harshness of working life in order to critique the forces giving rise to it....By contrast Socialist Realism, which was the mandated style for Communists around the same time, idealises the (post-Revolution) Worker' (wikipedia). Modernism focuses on the decay and alienation of the individual, in direct opposition to the earlier Romanticism that embraced an idealised version of progress and growth, love of Nature, beauty and imagination.

Oliver, the new vat worker, sums up this disconnect between worker and boss, reality versus idealisation, when he says,

'We ain't got much. But some of these bastards want to strip us down. Maybe after a while they get to feeling that we aren't built like them either. Where they've got lungs and heart and guts, and blood in their veins, maybe we've got wheels and gears and cogs. Maybe they don't mean to be bad. We're just not human. Not in the way they are. They'd strip us down, all right. And mainly we let them.

King St, Newtown 1950's - note the chimney stacks at the end of the street.

Philomena (Mena) Ivy Bright Calthorpe was born in 1905 in Goulburn, NSW. Her father was a droving contractor and Catholic. Her mother was a Protestant. It's hard to imagine now, how disturbing and unusual that was considered at the time.

After school, Mena taught in small country schools for a decade before marrying Bill Calthorpe, a sheep farmer from Yass. His family were forced to sell the farm in 1933, so Mena and Bill moved to Paddington to start up a shop. It was unsuccessful. Mena joined the Communist Party in 1933 while Bill became involved in the trade union movement. Mena worked in various office jobs, including in a textile factory, and wrote in her spare time.

She left the Communist party a few years later because she couldn't afford the cost of being an organiser and joined her local Caringbah branch of the Labor Party instead. Another factor for joining the Caringbar branch was B. A. Santamaria's Catholic faction, the Groupers. They were also based in Caringbar. They actively opposed Communist involvement in the trade union movement and Mena actively opposed them! (I would be keen to read her second book, The Defectors (1969) that goes into branch and trade union politics.)

She joined a writers group which included Katharine Susannah Prichard, Sally Bannister and Dorothy Corke. Mena also attended meetings of the Fellowship of Australian Writers with Dymphna & Mary Cusack and Florence James.

The Dyehouse was the first of three novels. Mena died in Sutherland, Sydney in 1996.

“It might be easier for the boy,” Barney thought. “Sixteen or seventeen years is a long time. And the future could be different. Yes, a man could bank on that. The future would not be the same.”

“I’d like to have a lot to give you, Patty. A new house in one of the outer suburbs. Lovely clothes. We haven’t got much. All our lives we’ll be working and just trying to hang on to what we have. Blokes with money will make more and more. People like us will make it for them. And all the time we’ll be lucky if we can just hang on.”

Time has been kinder to The Dyehouse, than some of the reviewers of the time. R.R. from the Canberra Times | Formula Story set in Factory Scene | 16 Sept 1961 | said,

Yet the book is badly overwritten and pretentious. It needs ruthless pruning of its "literary" passages. Even moderate editing out of such schoolgirl words as "clatter," "click clack," and "tic tac," which jangle irritatingly through it, would improve it immensely.

The numerous vulgarities are forced and unnatural.

She has considerable skill as a writer, her great strength appears to be story construction. When she stops fascinating herself with her own clever prose, throws away her thesaurus, and gets down to telling a story simply, economically, and honestly she may well be a force to be reckoned with on the Australian literary scene.

Thankfully, Fiona MacFarlane is able to see the value of Calthorpe's 'restrained lyricism' and the 'playful attention to sound' when referring to these same aspects of the writing. As for the vulgarities, I have to assume that they referred to all the 'old bastards' and 'poor bastards' littered throughout the worker's dialogue. Unnatural perhaps, insofar as these curses have been watered down by Mena so as not to really offend the reading public!

It's hard to believe that this Miles Franklin Award shortlisted book and author could have been forgotten or overlooked for so long.

Sali Herman (1898 - 1993)
The Women Of Paddington, 1950

Favourite Quote:

Past Redfern, where they changed, the cottages with their little squares of gardens flashed past. The backs of the houses faced the railway lines. The sun beat on the sloping roofs of rust-marked corrugated iron, slates or grimy tile. Between the paling fences rose a medley of of clotheslines. Choko vines screened verandahs and outhouses with their cool green. Pumpkins were ripening on the tops of skillion roofs, their green skins flecked with yellow and orange.

Facts:

• Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 1961
• 100th book in the Text Classics series

The Yield by Tara June Winch

I've been trying to write a review for The Yield by Tara June Winch for the past week that would do it justice and adequately describe my reading experience. But I'm so tired and under the weather with a foggy brain and raspy throat that nothing is coming out right.

So, let me just simply say how much I enjoyed this story. From the beautiful cover to the endearing protagonist, August and her amazing Poppy Albert, the dictionary maker. It's not often that I tell you to read a book, but this is the one. The Yield is not just a highly recommended, but a must read.

The main themes centre around grief, loss, missing and belonging. We have a missing child, a missing book and all of our characters miss the recently deceased Poppy.

We have lost language, lost country and that sense of loss for those no longer with us as well as times gone by.

Three different perspectives are explored by Winch in this multi-generational story. We have August's contemporary story. A young Indigenous woman, living abroad, running away from her losses, trying to work out who she is and how she fits into this modern world. Poppy's death is the catalyst for bringing her home to Prosperous House.

Poppy Albert is the heart and soul of the story. His first person story is told via a dictionary of Wiradjuri words. Like the Oxford English Dictionary, we get a definition of the word with an example of the word in use. But it's not just any old example. Albert uses the dictionary to relate family stories, pass on culture, myths and legends to be 'proud of our culture again'. These sections of the book are inspired and revealing.

The third perspective turns up later in the story when we get a few letters written by the Rev Ferdinand Greenleaf, the minister who established and ran Prosperous Mission in the early part of the twentieth century. His letters cover the period around 1915. As a German national, he is now under suspicion thanks to the war. He is trying to get funding and government guarantees to protect everyone staying at Prosperous. He documents some of the violence and mistreatment of the local Aboriginal tribes.

Winch's moving story reminds me once again that Indigenous culture is not a unified whole. And that's okay. Like every other culture, different groups within that culture want different things. Poppy Albert's family, faced with the sadness of his death and the tragedy of dispossession as a tin mine tries to take over their property, all react differently - some want the money, some want to stay on the land, some want to remember the past, some want to forget, some want to fight, some want to give in.

I will leave you to discover for yourself the beauty of the brolga's, but for now I will leave you with a few key passages that spoke to me.

August:

Her mouth ached for something more, wanted some unknown balm, not a kiss, or a meal, or a drink, but something long denied....The feeling that nothing was properly said, that she'd existed in a foreign land of herself. How she saw home through the eyes of everyone else but her.

How she was scared to leave, even more scared to stay. 

But in every mobile-library book, she could never find herself or her sister. Never a girl like August and Jedda Gondiwindi, not ever.

Poppy Albert:

'Just tell the truth and someone will hear it eventually'.

searching, looking around - ngaa-bun-gaa-nha When I turned fifteen and was too old for the Boys' Home I was a ward of the state still, working the local properties. At nineteen I was issued my dog tag. With it I could travel in a certain distance to work for meat and salt on the field or out mustering. I moved around far and wide looking for work, but I was looking mostly ngaa-bun-gaa-nha for home.

So much to unpack in just this one definition. Why was Albert a ward of the state in a Boys' Home?  Dog tags! Lack of freedom, working for food not wages, loss of family and home and belonging. Every one of Poppy's definitions has this same sense of the universal wrapped up in the personal.

ashamed, have shame - giyal-dhuray I'm done with this word. I'd leave it out completely but I can't. It's become part of the dictionary we think we carry. We mustn't anymore. See, pain travels through our family tree like a songline. We've been singing our pain into a solid thing. the old ones, the young ones, are ready to heal. We don't have to be giyal-dhuray anymore, we don't have to pass that down anymore.

I was also taken with this very simple, but clearly prescribed view of Indigenous religion:

Biyaami is the creator, but we don't worship him or his son. We worship the things He made, the earth.

Favourite Quote:

After I met my beautiful wife, although beauty was the least of her, strong and fearless was the most of her - well she taught me lots of things.

Favourite or Forget: Not only a firm favourite but possibly a reread as well. I will certainly be reading more by Winch in the future.

Book 12 of 20 Books of Summer Winter
Sydney 17℃
Dublin  23℃

Flames by Robbie Arnott

It's a long weekend in Australia, and for the first time in over a year, we've enjoyed a lazy, nothing-to-do-but-flop-around-the-house kind of weekend. It has been blissful. Even with the ghastly high temps and even higher humidity, or maybe because of, it has been the perfect time for reading, snoozing and listening to music as we sporadically clean and tidy the house.

Typing up reviews has been the furthest thing from my mind.

Lots of changes (the good, positive, life-going-forward kind of changes, but changes nonetheless) are coming our way this year - starting next week when B18 goes away to Uni.

The teenage years are not easy for anyone to live through, which is maybe Nature's way of making it easy for both teens and their parents to let go. But as tough as the last few years have been (and there were times when I thought my sanity would not survive intact), I wouldn't now swap them for anything.

Which brings me to Flames by Robbie Arnott. Like a teenager in full flight, it's a hard novel to define or pin down. Like a teenager, it's a debut with flights of fancy, bravado and wild schemes. It's on the verge of greatness, oozing potential and grand ideas. But unlike living with teenagers, I loved every minute of it and can't wait to see what Arnott does next!

The Tasmanian environment is one of the prominent characters throughout this genre-defying story which Arnott uses to stress the interconnectedness between us all. Fire, water, trees and the gods play their parts too.

Flames has a fablesque quality and is mythological in tone with different writing styles to suit each characters story. Arnott plays around with magic realism, an epistolary chapter, report writing and the fabulous chapter with the female private eye that reads like a Tasmanian Philip Marlowe, just to name a few. It should have felt disjointed and all over the place, but just like a teen, it somehow made sense and seemed like just the right thing to do at that time.

Through his various characters, Arnott explores the wild, raw nature of grief, mourning and love. We watch them come to terms with letting go of what they thought they knew as they learn to embrace the unknowable future and whatever it might bring. No matter how far apart you may seem to be, you are still family, you are still connected, and it will ultimately keep you afloat, if you let it.

Arnott is a young Tasmanian copywriter. Flames has been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, the Indie Book Awards for Debut Fiction, and the Queensland Literary Awards: University of Queensland Fiction Book Award 2018.

Facts:

• Longlisted | 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
• Winner | Margaret Scott Prize | Tasmanian Premier's Literary Awards 2019
• Shortlisted | Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction 2019
• Longlisted | Indie Book Awards for Debut Fiction 2019
• Shortlisted | UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing | NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2019
• Shortlisted | Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award 2018
• Shortlisted | Kathleen Mitchell Award 2019
• Longlisted | ALS Gold Medal 2019
• Longlisted | Miles Franklin Literary Award 2019
• Longlisted | Voss Literary Prize 2019
• Shortlisted | Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize UK 2019

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

I suspect I'm going to be the lone dissenting voice when it comes to Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton.

This is a debut Australian novel garnering a HUGE amount of attention and rave reviews. In the lead up to our Christmas rush at work last year, this is the book many, many locals were asking for. Customers were returning to tell us how much they ADORED the book and every second book club, including mine, seemed to pick it for their summer holiday read.

I was thrilled that I was going to have a good excuse to make time for this book and I couldn't wait to get stuck into it.

To start with what I loved:

• The cover - just gorgeous, vibrant and psychedelic. The blue wren makes sense once you start reading. For an in depth look into how cover designers settle on the finished design read this fascinating piece from the Australian Book Design Association. They interviewed Darren Holt and Claire Ward, the Australian and UK designers for Boy Swallows Universe (as well as other designers for other books).
• The writing - Dalton took my breath away. I was completely and utterly WOWED.
• The protagonist, Eli Bell is a wonderful narrator. His voice is believable, charming and unique.
• The introduction of ex-con Slim Halliday as Eli's babysitter added a quirky touch.
• I loved the themes - a young boy looking for a 'good man' to love and model his life on, brotherly love, redemption and protection, a young boys fierce need for mother love.
• Early on I also began to suspect that this book was also heavily embedded in real life events.
• Slim Halliday was a real criminal who did his time in Boggo Road Gaol.
• How much else was real?

However around the 50 page mark, the underbelly criminal stuff started to take centre stage. Drugs, drug running and drug lords took over the story. Because I now suspected that this was based on a true story (I hadn't googled at this point) I made myself keep reading even though, every single extra sordid drug reference and act turned me off more and more and more. 

I've always believed that if someone actually had to LIVE through something ghastly, the very least I can do from my safe, white, middle class home, is read about it with understanding and compassion and a huge dose of gratefulness for my very ordinary upbringing.

True crime is not my usual genre, but I have been known to be fascinated by the occasional story. We watched the second season of Underbelly that starred Matthew Newton which was centred around the murder of Donald Mackay in Griffith in 1977, but I haven't been able to watch any of the other seasons. I also haven't got into Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or Orange is the New Black.

However, with Boy Swallows Universe, I got to a point, about 100 pages in, where the amazing writing and the affection I felt for the two brothers, wasn't enough to sustain me through the relentless criminal activity. 

I admire Dalton for finding such an incredible way to process the trauma from his childhood. There is so much love for this story 'out there', that I'm sure it will pop up in most of the Australian book awards this year. It deserves it too. The praise being heaped on it, is valid, but the content is just not my thing. There are so many books, about topics that I have way more interest in, waiting for me to read them, that I don't want to give too much time to one of those that just fails to fit the bill...for me.

Boy Swallows Universe has just been shortlisted for the Indie Debut Fiction Book Awards.

I've labelled this with the Did Not Finish tag, but it was more a case of skim reading the last three quarters of the book before slowing down to read the last chapter properly.

March update: I gave this to Mr Books to read because I suspected that he would love it. He did.
He felt the criminal activity was within context and didn't dominate the story. For him, the story of the boys, the search for goodness and what makes a person 'good' and the power of redemption were powerful, moving themes.
He was surprised I couldn't finish it, even though he has had years of watching me hide behind pillows and my hands in violent movies! (We're rewatching Game of Thrones in preparation for the final season. Because I know what's coming, I'm spending even more time behind the pillows than I did with the first viewing, when many of the violent/cruel scenes caught me by surprise. I also know to leave the room whenever Bolton walks on screen).

Facts:

• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
• Winner 2019 ABIA Book of the Year Award | Literary Fiction Book of the Year
• Winner 2019 Indie Book Award
• Winner 2019 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing | NSW Premier's Literary Awards
• Winner 2019 People's Choice Award | NSW Premier's Literary Awards
• Winner 2019 ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year
• Longlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Colin Roderick Award

Taboo by Kim Scott

I'm not sure I will be able to adequately sum up my thoughts and impressions about Taboo by Kim Scott, but I'll give it a shot.

Scott has been shortlisted for this year's Miles Franklin Award; he has already won it twice. In 2000 for Benang: From the Heart and again in 2011 for That Deadman Dance.

Benang is on my TBR pile, but I have yet to read either. My understanding is that they are both historical fiction in nature, with an Indigenous perspective of our shared history. Taboo is contemporary fiction, with not only an Indigenous perspective of our shared history but also with an eye towards our possible shared future. I found it to be an extraordinary feat of compassion, revelation and hope. 

After stumbling through the first 50 pages or so, lost and unsure how to proceed, I found a kind of rhythm and sense to the disjointed passages. The jumps and starts started to feel symbolic and purposeful. I then began to see the poetry in the chaos. 

Scott described this style in the Afterword as, 

a trippy, stumbling sort of genre-hop that I think features a trace of Fairy Tale, a touch of Gothic, a sufficiency of the ubiquitous Social Realism and perhaps a tease of Creation Story.

The story at the heart of Taboo is the memory of an 18th century massacre and the work that a small country town in W.A. does to heal this wound. From this brutal past, with all its miscommunication, misinterpretation & denial as well as the stark realities of modern life for many Aboriginal Australians, Scott encourages us to find connection and shared meaning.

And country.

Like, Scott, I believe that the hope for our future lies in our shared sense of country. It is thanks to our Aboriginal heritage that many Anglo-Australians have changed the way they/we/me use the word 'country' to describe our sense of belonging and attachment to this place we call home. It's an important shift in thinking and feeling that gives all of us a common sense of belonging, well-being and pride. 

The power of words and the importance of language is another central idea explored by Scott in Taboo,

Story like this really about coming together, healing and making ourselves strong with language.

He reminds us that many place names as well as the names for native plants and animals have been derived from their Aboriginal names. Aboriginal history is all around us; in country and in words.

We'll take the language back, the stories that belong here and tell us who to be, what we can do.

Mangart - Jam tree - Acacia acuminata

'Words hold everything together.'

One of the trees endemic to the Noongar region of W.A., that Scott's characters regularly referred to, was a jam tree. The stone curlew was important too. I didn't know either by sight, so I did a quick search to help me with imagining the environment accurately. 

Bush stone curlew

As you might expect from a story about a massacre, spirits, ghosts, presences and apparitions haunt as well as welcome our characters - the Aboriginal characters as well as the Anglo ones - to place and time. They are,

'something both new and old, something recreated and invigorated.' 

Scott doesn't shy away from the complexities inherent in modern Australian life. His characters were not stereotypes or caricatures. They were flawed, idealistic, weak, contrary human beings trying to be the best they could.

Or as Scott says in his Afterword, 'a little band of survivors following a retreating tide of history, and returning with language and story...provides the connection with a story of place deeper than colonisation, and for transformation and healing.'

Bill @The Australian Legend has written an informative post about the Cocanarup massacres that are central to this story.

If you'd like to learn more about Noongar language and culture visit their website here.

Scott has also been engaged in the Stories Project that produces illustrated picture books in Noongar language.

The Garma Festival is currently on in Gove, Northern Territory. An awareness and appreciation for our Indigenous past is slowing, oh so slowly, gaining momentum, although our politicians response to the Uluru Statement from last year is sadly lagging behind the thinking of many other Australians.

Book 14 of #20BooksofSummer (winter)
24℃ in Sydney
21℃ in Northern Ireland

The Last Days of Ava Langdon by Mark O'Flynn

The Last Days of Ava Langdon has been shortlisted for this year's Miles Franklin award, that fact, and it's striking cover, brought it into my life at this time.

I have yet to read Eve Langley's The Pea-Pickers (1942) - it has been on my TBR pile for quite some time though. Reading O'Flynn's fictionalised account of Langley's last days has increased my desire to read it sooner rather than later.

In O'Flynn's story, Langdon's famous book is called The Apple Pickers. Her real life son, Karl Marx is re-named Vladimir Ilyich (yes, really!), but her alter ego remains Oscar Wilde. Both Eve and Ava changed their name by deed poll in 1954 to Oscar Wilde.

Ava is eccentric, mentally unstable and colourful. She would now be labelled as having gender identity confusion. O'Flynn uses flashes of clarity and flashbacks to earlier times to gently reveal her story. His writes with a great deal of affection, empathy and respect for his invented character and her real-life counterpart. Most of the time I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

O'Flynn mentions in his notes at the back of the book that,

if anything she was probably more addled than I portrayed here.

Which only makes Ava/Eva's story even more bittersweet and poetic.

O'Flynn shows how her very (over)active imagination acts/reacts to every day events happening around her by using a present tense third person interior monologue.

An example looks a little like this (from pg 20):

Ava's imagination brings sentience to the world and casts it in a luminous light, like looking at a dragonfly in a bottle. Her hand briefly touches the bark of every tree trunk. For Ava the orchard is a gentle reminder of those glory days when she went fruit picking with Red, the way breakfast is a reminder of every breakfast as, in fact, an echo of the breast. An orchard is a place of whispering, familiar voices. Where are they now. her happy ghosts? Why, alive in her heart, that's where.  How long has the orchard, originally propagated by monks, been here surrounded by bush? Ava does not know, but she offers up a vote of thanks to the old forward-thinking Franciscans who planted it in the first place. Good lads, those chaps. She wonders if she has the heart to be a Franciscan. A vow of silence? Hardly. A vow of genius. Yes, more like it.

Having spent quite a bit of time in Katoomba over the years, I also really loved the walk that Ava took us on through 1970's Katoomba and Medlow Bath, especially Ava's evening visit to the the Hydro Majestic which happens to be a significant part of my own story.

O'Flynn is a local to the Blue Mountains. He did an interview with Megalong Books in Leura where he replied to a question about the type of research he did to prepare for this book with,

As Peter Carey says of research, I probably did less than you’d think and more than I’d like.

The Miles Franklin Award stipulates that the,

prize shall be awarded for the Novel for the year which is of the highest literary merit and which must present Australian Life in any of its phases.

Having read only one of the five shortlisted books I cannot compare literary merit, but The Last Days of Ava Langdon certainly ticks the second criteria very nicely.

The Long & Short of it.

I haven't been paying as much attention as usual to the various literary awards and their shortlists this year. Partly because I have wanted to read more classics this year and partly because I've dropped the ball in quite a few areas lately!

However, I have just started reading one of the shortlisted Miles Franklin books and yesterday's Man Booker Longlist announcement actually featured some books that I had read, or part read.

There were quite a few books on both lists that I had never heard of before - which is quite an accomplishment considering I work in an Indy bookshop with literary leanings.

Miles Franklin shortlist:

• An Isolated Incident by Emily Maguire (Pac Macmillan Australia)

I attempted to read this book when it was shortlisted for the Stella Prize earlier in the year, but I simply cannot do stories about the murder of a young girl in a country town, as discussed here.

• The Last Days Of Ava Langdon by Mark O’Flynn (University of Queensland Press)

I've just started Ava.

I'm currently swirling along in a glorious puddle of Ada words and ideas.

• Their Brilliant Careers by Ryan O’Neill (Black Inc)

• Waiting by Philip Salom (Puncher & Wattmann)

• Extinctions by Josephine Wilson (UWA Publishing)

Man Booker Longlist:

• 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (US) (Faber & Faber)

My first DNF (did not finish) on this year's list.
It started with such promise, but sadly fell away, until I lost interest completely.

• Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Ireland) (Faber & Faber)

• History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (US) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan-UK) (Hamish Hamilton)

One of my favourite reads of 2017 so far and one of my rare 5 star review on Goodreads.

• Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Ireland) (Canongate)

• Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (UK) (4th Estate)

• Elmet by Fiona Mozley (UK) (JM Originals)

• The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (India) (Hamish Hamilton)

Perhaps this was a case of the wrong book at the wrong time,
but it also ended up as a big, fat DNF for me.

• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (US) (Bloomsbury)

• Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (UK-Pakistan) (Bloomsbury)

• Autumn by Ali Smith (UK) (Hamish Hamilton)

• Swing Time by Zadie Smith (UK) (Hamish Hamilton)

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (US) (Fleet)

If I were to read only one more book from each of the above lists, which one should it be?

I'm leaning towards Swing Time for the Booker and Extinctions for the Miles. but I could be persuaded in another direction.

Epigraph Philosophy

I love a good epigraph.

A well-chosen, thoughtful epigraph can establish the tone for the book journey you're about to embark on. However many authors spend a lot of time and effort on finding the perfect epigraph only for it to be skimmed over by most readers.

For the reader who does consider the epigraph, its true significance may not become apparent until the end of the book, by which time it has been long forgotten.

It's time to rectify this sad, sad wrong.
It's time to save the epigraph from obscurity!

I'm currently reading one of this year's Miles Franklin shortlisted books, The Last Days of Ava Langdon by Mark O'Flynn. His epigraph is by Oscar Wilde, Letters from Paris, 1900.

The Last Days of Ava Langdon is loosely based on the real life story of Eve Langley, author of The Pea Pickers. She and her sister, famously, defiantly dressed as a young men during the 1920's and travelled around rural Victoria picking peas and hops. She used her memories and experiences of this time to create her book The Pea Pickers.

At some point after this, it is claimed that she began 'equating creativity and artistic freedom with masculinity'. In 1954 she changed her name by deed poll to Oscar Wilde, who she believed was her alter ego. J. L. Thwaite's biography of her was titled The Importance of Being Eve Langley (1989).

The Oscar Wilde connection is, therefore, pretty obvious, but I am yet to understand the reference to miracles. There is a religious element as well as a homage to a Shakespearean quote from Henry V i. i. 67 It must be so; for miracles are ceased;

but the rest is yet to be discovered.

The full quote from Letters to Paris is:

I hope to be in Rome in about 10 days - and this time I really must become a Catholic - though I fear that if I went before the Holy Father with a blossoming rod it would turn at once into an umbrella or something dreadful of that kind. It is absurd to say that the age of miracles is past. It has yet to begun.

It’s been twenty years since Ava Langdon published her much-lauded novel The Apple Pickers, but today could very well be the day her genius is finally recognised again. Armed with a freshly completed manuscript, a yellow cravat and a machete, Ava strides out into the world in the hope of being published – and so the adventure begins. Despite being dismissed as an eccentric – or worse – by the world around her, and battling poverty and age, Ava’s internal world remains vivid; her purpose, clear. 

Author Mark O’Flynn first learned about legendary Blue Mountains writer and recluse Eve Langley when he stumbled across her abandoned hut outside the small town of Leura. Though he moved on to other projects, Langley’s voice stayed with him: ‘Why did she change her name (by deed poll) to Oscar Wilde? Why the romantic preoccupation with her past? So little is known of her final days.’ O’Flynn’s fascination with her life eventually led to the creation of the irrepressible Ava Langdon. 

Rich in wordplay and colourful anecdote, The Last Days of Ava Langdon is an intimate, witty and soulful conjuring of a once-great artist in her final days, which will leave the reader questioning – what passion would sustain you if everything was lost?

Epigraph Philosophy has the potential to become a personal meme. I like taking the time to research these quotes. It has added to my reading pleasure.

Have you come across a particularly meaningful, insightful or startling epigraph in your recent reading?

I'd love to know what it is and why it took your fancy.

Did you connect to it personally?
Did it put you off or lead you into the story?
Did the quote only make sense once you got into the story? Or at the end?
What does a little bit of googling reveal about your epigraph?

If you'd like to write your own #epigraphphilosophy post please add you link in the comments below.
Use <a href="URL">word</a> to make your link hyper.

If this becomes a thing, I would happily consider another name/hashtag, if any of you have a talent for naming memes!

To finish, I leave you with a Montaigne quote,

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar

One of my good friends has been raving about Salt Creek for nearly a year now. I knew I would love it - it has all the things I usually look for in a good book.

Strong, interesting female protagonist, fascinating setting (Younghusband Peninsula in South Australia), a lovely cover design and historical fiction based loosely on real stories.

Hester is the eldest daughter in a large family fallen on hard times thanks to their father's dubious business investment ideas.

After the failure of his sheep run and the sudden death of two baby siblings, the grieving family is forced to sell up and move to the Coorong region.

Treloar's writing is beautiful, even lyrical at times, but the story that is told is tragic.

The earth still turned and we had almost reached the sun.

There was nothing there but a strong feeling of absence.

A person might appear to be complete and be invisibly crumbling, or might appear to be falling apart and yet persist despite all expectations. 

Poverty, hard work, more loss, death and business failures dog the family throughout their time at the Coorong.

However, it is Hester's strong will and hopeful nature that keeps them together, or at least moving forward as best they can.

They befriend a young man from one of the local tribes, Tull.

For me this is one of the highlights of the story. The disconnect between the two worlds is so vividly and perceptively drawn. Both parties tried so hard to get to know each other, to learn from each other, but you just know it will end badly. This imbues the story with sadness and frustration.
You know what's coming; we just don't know the details of how Treloar is going to bring it about.

Treloar's indigenous perspective is definitely coloured by Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth, which she acknowledged in her afterword. For me this is historical revisionism at its best.

If you loved Kate Grenville's The Secret River or The Lieutenant, I think you will love this too.
Salt Creek is heart-achingly good and deserves to be widely read.

And I'm not the only one to think so. Treloar won the 2016 Dobbie Literary Award and the Debut Fiction section of the 2016 Indie Book Awards. Salt Creek was also shortlisted for the 2016 Miles Franklin Award.

Whether we will ever make something complete I cannot know. It is a fractured thing, life; it is in its nature...and broken people can survive and find each other and become whole.

This review is part of my Australian Women Writer's challenge.

Swords and Crowns and Rings by Ruth Park

Ruth Park (1917 - 2010) won the 1977 Miles Franklin Award with her penultimate adult novel, Swords and Crowns and Rings.

Until it was republished under the Text Classics umbrella in 2012, I had never even heard of it, let alone read any reviews about it.

I've been wondering how this was possible?

I read and loved some of Park's children's books when I was young - Callie's Castle, Playing Beatie Bow and When the Wind Changed. In 1986/7 I adored the TV series based on her books Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange and subsequently read both books. But I never knew she had won Australia's primary literary award.

The Miles Franklin Award aims to celebrate a novel each year that 'is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases.'

Swords and Rings and Crowns is all of this.

There is nothing experimental or challenging about the format or structure of the book. It is straight forward historical fiction with a coming of age element and some romance. But it is beautifully realised.

Park's writing is evocative and authentic. She brings the hardships and the details of Depression era NSW to life so vividly that you can feel the hunger, the cold and the fear along with her characters. However, the bleakness of the times was compensated for by the warmth and grace of her central characters.

Jackie, the dwarf, his mother, Peggy, and stepfather, Jerry are a loving, strong unit. They tackle life with practical good sense, kindness and a togetherness that is enviable. Jackie's dwarfism was never allowed to be a disability although it obviously played a large role in shaping his character. His parents taught him resilience and that being a good man had nothing to do with size but everything to do with who you are on the inside. Their mission in life was to make Jackie's 'soul grow.'

They gave him books on mythology that featured whole worlds of 'clever and heroic dwarfs'. When he was young, Jackie believed that the nearby hills housed a whole race of people like him because 'the mines in the hills (were where) the dwarfs dig gold and makes swords and crowns and rings.' This sense of mythology and belonging served him well as time went by. It became the solid foundation that was never rocked by the trials of adult life.

Jackie was also blessed throughout his life with the unconditional love of two young women. Cushie, the girl next door and Maida, the cruelly treated step-cousin.

Clearly, Jackie's personal growth and sense of self was heavily informed by Park's own growing interest in Zen Buddhism at this time in her life. He was able to live for the moment and accept 'the fate that seemed to be his.'

Although I studied the events and effects of the Depression at school, it was still shocking to be reminded about the harsh conditions of this time. In the hands of Park, who had an intimate knowledge of the poverty and joblessness during the 30's, the scenes of Jackie and Jerry wandering the countryside looking for work, are heart wrenching in their authenticity. They brought to mind the gritty, dirty realism of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and Emile Zola's descriptions of grinding poverty in Germinal.

The Sydney scenes were particularly meaningful to me. Cushie's grandmother lived in Balmain (my home for the past 8 years) 'in a house she would not leave, though the district was running down and becoming industrial.'

Cushie's first experiences of living in Sydney were familiar as she came to terms with the old narrow, winding streets for the first time.

So she began to learn a little of the city that lay, like a lump of irregular, time-worn stone, on the palm of a huge hand that was the blue-fingered Harbour. It was a city she had not even guessed....The warmth and squalor of the unknown town appealed to her strangely; she felt almost happy sometimes.

Sydney can have that affect on you!

The ending was predictable, although Park kept it from us for as long as possible. I would have liked to see Jackie and Cushie together, working to bring her grandmother's behest to help the poor, to fruition.

But I guess that's what imagination is for.

#AusReadingMonth
#AustWomenWriters

Are You Readalong Ready?

I am!

Since returning from my holidays and finishing my #20booksofsummer (winter) challenge and my Home and the World readalong with Cirtnecce, I've been thinking about what I want to read next and with who.

I love the classics and would like to read more. It would also help my TBR pile tremendously.

Working in a small Independent bookshop means I'm never in short of supply of the basic materials. But it also means that I have to read more new releases than I would normally do (pre-bookshop days normal that is).

How will I ever get around to reading all those classics waiting patiently on my TBR shelf and how will I find the time to reread some of my all time favourites?

At the moment, though, classics only seem to make it onto my reading pile when the latest Classics Club does it's spin or via a random readalong that I suddenly spy in blogland.

I've decided it's time to get more proactive about putting the classics back into my regular reading routine.

AusReading Month is coming up in November.

My plan this year is to read Ruth Park's 1977 Miles Franklin Award winning book, Swords and Crowns and Rings.

She was the banker's daughter, a highborn, golden beauty. He was a grocer's son, strong and proud, but fate had masked his strength and pride with a form that set him forever apart from other men. Compelling need drew them together, A bewitching fantasy encircled and sustained them. 

Then the Great Depression swept across Australia to impoverish the rich, humble the proud, and turn the poor into a stunned army of desperate vagrants and homeless vagabonds. Expelled from their enchanted realm, brutally separated, they each clutched a secret, a promise a dream of finding each other in a harsh world where only a perfect love like theirs could survive, overcome and triumph.

That's a start!

Roof Beam Reader has been talking on twitter about doing some kind of classics challenge next year, which sounds promising as I do enjoy a good readalong. I'm hoping that a couple of his choices will match my TBR and TBRR piles.

However, there are four books I've been wanting to reread now for over ten years.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien.

Since working in the bookshop I have collected four beautifully illustrated (by Alan Lee) hardback editions of these books. I really want to dive into them to revisit the story and pore over the pictures.

But I've been waiting for enough time to lapse between movie LOTR and a reread so that some of Jackson's strong imagery could dissipate.

(Can you believe it has been nearly 15 years since we sat outside the movie theatre on Boxing Day to attend the special midnight viewing of The Fellowship of the Ring in Australia?

2001 was still in the era of different release dates for movies and books around the world. Aussies had to wait a whole week longer to see each of the LOTR movies than UK and US audiences. The only good point about this was that the Australian release date was midnight on Boxing Day for each of the three movies. Three years in a row, my sisters and friends came together to watch these huge movies on the big screen. We were young twenty and thirty-somethings (pre-kids) living and working away from our birth families, but who still came home for Christmas every year. Watching these three movies became a real celebration and ceremony for us. They also marked a turning point in many of our lives as marriages, babies, new jobs and moves took us into our full-on adult lives - and away from midnight movie sessions.)

Thanks to my current job, I have to be realistic about the time frame in which I can read these books.

I really do have to read the new releases to keep up with customer recommendations. This is not a chore, of course, I'm not complaining, really, but it does get in the way of my classics reading and the love I get from rereading my favourites.

Would anyone else be interested in reading (or rereading as the case may be) The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King with me next year?

I was thinking we could read

The Hobbit in February 

The Fellowship of the Ring in March - April

The Two Towers in May - June

The Return of the King in July - August

What do you think?

The Great World by David Malouf

Rereading a book after 18 yrs is a very interesting experience. It's almost like reading it again for the first time.

This has certainly been the case for me and The Great World.

Thanks to the fact that I write my name, date and place of purchase on the inside cover of all my books I know roughly when I read it. The date inside my copy of The Great World is 22nd Dec 1997, Randwick.

That was back in my teaching days. My sister lived in Coogee for a few years. Every school holidays during those years I would plan a brief visit. I'd spend some time lazing on the beach, catch a movie or two, eat out somewhere exotic and enjoy some shopping. Over summer, in particular, I made sure I had enough books on hand for the 5 week break ahead of me.

I read The Great World for the first time in the summer of 1998. I was still in my twenties (just) and the main thing I remember 18 yrs later is that this book had a profound impact on me. It also led to a long-standing literary love affair with David Malouf.

Before I started it again recently I tried to recall what was it that I remembered so clearly and profoundly. I quickly realised that I had no idea about the plot or characters. I had a vague idea that it was about one of the wars and friendship. The impact lay in the writing.

I was impressed (and at times overwhelmed) by the intelligence of Malouf's writing. His ability to describe an everyday emotion or thought so that you could grasp it yourself blew me away. There was nuance and complexity and humanity. And at times I struggled to keep up.

I was therefore excited and a little daunted to be starting this book again.

The opening line hooked me though. I read it a couple of times and thought, this is what makes a great book - a heart-stopping, breath-catching, let-me-read-that-again beginning.

People are not always kind, but the kind thing to say about Jenny was that she was simple.

Straight away I was reminded of why I loved Malouf's writing.
I couldn't remember who Jenny was, but suddenly I remembered that this was a book about kindness, suffering and what makes us, unites us and divides us as human beings.
This was a big picture story told through the lens of a few specific characters that I was about to get to know again.

The Great World is a war story - WWII and Changi. It is about friendships - the kind that last for ever, the kind that surprise, the kind that develop thanks to circumstances. It is about suffering - inflicted by others and that inflicted on ourselves. And it is about kindness in all it's guises.

The connections, or threads, that link us to each other, to our memories, to our shared histories and even to our future selves are all explored.

My reread was much easier than I remember the first, but my literary love for Malouf remains unchanged. I only wish I had more time to reread his entire backlist a
gain!

The Great World won the Miles Franklin Award in 1991
I read this book as part of my Classics Club challenge and ccspin #9.

And the Winner Is....

It's that time of year again when the book world goes crazy with longlists, shortlists and highly commended's! 

No matter what you think about the various awards, their merits & selection criteria's, it's very difficult not to get caught up in the buzz.

In Australia, the Indie Book Award has come and gone... 

and the Stella longlist has been whittled down to a 6 book shortlist.

The Miles Franklin Award began it's 2015 journey with an impressive longlist. 

The shortlist is due on the 18th May, with the winner announced on the 23rd June.

 In the UK, the Folio Prize celebrated it's second year by awarding it's Prize to Family Life a couple of weeks ago.

 And the Baileys Women's Prize released it's (dare I say) ridiculous large longlist.

 

Which they quickly shortlisted to the books below.

The winner will be announced on the 3rd June.

This week the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award also released their shortlist with the winner announced on the 17th June.

I'm pleased to see Nora Webster on a couple of lists.
I hope to read A Spool of Blue Thread & Harvest soon (they're both on my TBR pile).
How to be Both and Paying Guests intrigue and repel me at the same time.

I think I'm the only Australian who hasn't read Burial Rites - purely because the hype got to me!

I've just finished Heat and Light & feel very kindly about its chances for taking out the Stella, although The Golden Age will probably give it a good run for the money (so I believe - another book for my ever expanding wishlist!)

Do you have any favourite's in the running this year?
Do you care?
Is there an award where you try to read the entire shortlist prior to the winning announcement?