‘On activation each morning Charles’ first duty was to check his master’s travel arrangements for the day.’
Meet Charles, a valet robot. Charles’s worl‘On activation each morning Charles’ first duty was to check his master’s travel arrangements for the day.’
Meet Charles, a valet robot. Charles’s world is ordered and predictable … until he (inexplicably) murders his master. Charles needs a purpose, and (eventually) sets off on a journey to find a new job. Charles, who later becomes known as Uncharles (after a period of being referred to as the Undesignated Valet Unit), soon discovers a chaotic world. The name change is necessary because the name ‘Charles’ belongs to the household he was part of.
Uncharles’s journey unfolds over five parts, reflecting/linking different authorial views of the world: KR15-T (Christie), K4FK-R (Kafka), 4W-L (Orwell), 80RH-5 (Borges) and D4NT-A (Dante).
The world, as Uncharles soon discovers, is in chaos. The human hierarchy, completely dependent on robots, is disintegrating and the robot ecosystem is adapting/evolving. At first, black humour dominates, as failing systems rely on logic which is unable to escape failing systems. Uncharles could wait forever outside Diagnostics to have his malfunction diagnosed, but a chance meeting with a peculiar robot known as ‘The Wonk’ who is convinced that Uncharles has been infected with the Protagonist Virus.
And so, their adventures continue. Uncharles is in search of work, The Wonk is in search of knowledge. What they find is evidence of a world in collapse, in chaos.
I really enjoyed the first two thirds of this novel but the final third both seemed inevitable and took too long. And yet I found myself seeing certain contemporary parallels:
‘Uncharles, in human populations there is seldom a uniformity of knowledge. Based on existing information I estimate that forty-five percent were unaware of the situation or considered it fake, owing to the precisely curated news sources that they limited themselves to, while a further thirty percent were aware but did not consider it their problem and twenty percent were aware and actively cheering on the fact or profiting from shorting elements of the neighbouring economy. A final five percent seem likely to have been directly and deliberately contributing to the collapse of their neighbour, either through reasons of malice or because they believed that in the absence of that competition their own interests would prosper. While low as a proportion, I estimate this final category wielded a disproportionate amount of influence.’
This is the first of Mr Tchaikovsky’s novels I have read, and I am certain I will read others.
‘I share this fictionalised account of the Wiradyuri wars as part of truth-telling in Australia.’
Ms Heiss’s author’s note provides context for this wo‘I share this fictionalised account of the Wiradyuri wars as part of truth-telling in Australia.’
Ms Heiss’s author’s note provides context for this work of historical fiction. And yes, it is uncomfortable reading for those of us whose knowledge of history is that written by the colonisers. More is being written now about the frontier wars across Australia, and this fictionalised account of the Wiradyuri wars is a reminder of some of the impacts of European colonisation.
Here is the publisher’s blurb for ‘Dirrayawadha’:
Miinaa was a young girl when the white ghosts first arrived. She remembers the day they raised a piece of red and white cloth and renamed her homeland ‘Bathurst’. Now she lives at Cloverdale and works for a white family who have settled there. The Nugents are kind, but Miinaa misses her miyagan. Her brother, Windradyne, is a Wiradyuri leader, and visits when he can, bringing news of unrest across their ngurambang. Miinaa hopes the violence will not come to Cloverdale, but she knows Windradyne is prepared to defend their Country if necessary.
When Irish convict Daniel O’Dwyer arrives at the settlement, Miinaa’s life is transformed again. The pair are magnetically drawn to each other and begin meeting at the bila in secret. Dan understands how it feels to be displaced, but they still have a lot to learn about each other. Can their love survive their differences and the turmoil that threatens to destroy everything around them?
‘We will never give up! Not our land, never.’
This novel, like Ms Heiss’s ‘Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams)’ provides the reader with a different view of 19th-century Australian history, a history many of us have are either ignorant of or ignore. Australia is a big country and while I knew nothing about the Bathurst wars, I have learned some uncomfortable truths about my home state of Tasmania. The story of Miina and Daniel draws together some of the impacts of two different stories of dispossession: transportation and colonisation, and highlights the different approaches to land:
‘The white ghosts build roads to get somewhere, but we follow the songlines, natural markings in the landscape, the bila, because we know the land, it has meaning for us. We go where nature has intended, not where we must force ourselves into the landscape.’
This novel made me think about the past and hope for a better future.
‘Have the white ghosts learned anything? Only time will tell.’
Adelaide, South Australia, 1917. The body of a young woman is found near the pier at Glenelg. She is q‘Help! Over here! There’s someone in the water!’
Adelaide, South Australia, 1917. The body of a young woman is found near the pier at Glenelg. She is quickly identified by Miss Kate Cocks, South Australia’s first policewoman, as Miss Black, a shop assistant in Moore’s Department Store. But after identifying her, Miss Cocks and her offsider Ethel Bromley are ordered to leave the investigation to the men. The officer investigating considers that Dora Black has committed suicide, because two bottles of liquid opium are found in Dora’s purse, but Miss Cocks does not agree. Alas, the role of policewomen at the time is seen as keeping women out of moral danger, not investigating crime. They are seen by many of their colleagues as ‘the petticoat police’. Shortly after, Dora’s colleague goes missing. Suspecting something sinister, Kate Cocks and Ethel Bromley undertake their own investigations.
What a thoroughly engaging mystery this is! A terrific blend of history and fiction. While I am familiar with Lillian Armfield, the first policewoman in New South Wales, I was unaware of Miss Kate Cocks in South Australia. In her Acknowledgements, Ms Anderson writes that ‘The Death of Dora Black began life as Call Miss Cocks! – the ‘creative artefact’ component of a PhD at the University of South Australia.’
While the real Miss Cocks was morally upright, conservative and deeply religious, she loved to shop and adored fashion. Moore’s Department store provides a focal point for the novel, and the observant Miss Cocks also solves a shoplifting case. By contrast, the (fictional) Ethel Bromley is much younger and provides a more modern perspective of the period. The contrast is important, and Kate and Ethel make a terrific team. And yes, they become involved in several investigations and while not all go according to plan, the value of their work is acknowledged. Eventually.
This is the first novel in a proposed series, with a second novel (Murder on North Terrace) foreshadowed for release in 2025.
‘When Constable Rainer Holt stepped out of the patrol car, the heat smashed him.’
White Ash Ridge is a small, isolated hotel in the Australian bush. Al‘When Constable Rainer Holt stepped out of the patrol car, the heat smashed him.’
White Ash Ridge is a small, isolated hotel in the Australian bush. All five rooms are booked by members of a high-profile charity needing to have critical discussions. It is hot, there is no air-conditioning and the heat and tension both increase when one of the guests is found bludgeoned to death close to the hotel.
Who killed him and why? Detective Dana Russo has her work cut out. The charity was formed when the founders’ teenage son was killed after intervening in a racially motivated assault. The police investigation was poorly handled, and the public was outraged. Given the isolation of the hotel and the fact that only five guests and the husband and daughter staff team were the only people present, it seems highly likely that one of the guests was the murderer.
There’s plenty of pressure on Dana and her team. None of the guests is particularly cooperative and it is only a matter of time before lawyers are involved and/or the case is taken over by other investigators. Fortunately, Dana has great team even though she is missing her usual partner, and a new detective allocated to the team is a largely unknown quantity.
The more the team investigates, the more questions are raised about both the charity and its members. In the absence of physical evidence, Dana and her team need to work carefully and quickly to ascertain the truth.
This is the fourth book in this series, and I enjoyed meeting up with Dana and her team (especially Lucy) again. The story unfolds through interviews with the four charity members and investigations into their lives and the charity. The team is under considerable pressure as the charity members cannot be detained indefinitely, and none of them have a high opinion of the police.
No spoilers here. A clever mystery with a focus on police work. And no, I did not work it out until very close to the end.
Set in regional Australia, farmer Tom Edwards knows he is dying. He has accepted the inevitability of death,‘Now that’s the way to bury your old man.’
Set in regional Australia, farmer Tom Edwards knows he is dying. He has accepted the inevitability of death, but while watching television one day, he wonders about his four children. Where are they, and how will they observe his death? And what about his ten-thousand-acre property? Tom has an idea, and with the help of a local solicitor makes a new will. After Tom’s death, the will is read. Tom’s will leaves equal shares to his four children Jenny, David, Christine and Sophie IF they work together to him a coffin in four days. Jenny listens carefully while the will is read, Christine is furious, David is shocked, and Sophie is distracted.
Four very different people, four very different reactions. Christine wants to contest the will; David is overwhelmed: his construction business is failing, and he was counting on inheriting and then selling the property (Ellersley had always been left to the oldest son); Sophie, who has her eye on the solicitor’s receptionist, doesn’t seem to appreciate what it means, while Jenny examines possibilities. Can the four of them work together long enough to make a coffin to meet Tom’s specifications?
As the story unfolds, we learn more about Jenny, David, Christine and Sophie, about their parents Tom and Helena, and the past. Each of the four siblings is distracted, but Jenny and David identify some timber and make a tentative start. Meanwhile, Christine faces some personal issues enhanced (or not) by naïve experimentation with drugs, Sophie focusses on the solicitor’s receptionist, David drinks too much and Jenny faces some difficult memories.
As the story unfolds through multiple narratives, the siblings learn more about each other, the past and their future aspirations. And the ending is perfect.
If a mural is a large picture, then this ‘Mural’ is larger and more detailed than many. ‘Mural’ is described as ‘a ‘We hate being excluded, don’t we?’
If a mural is a large picture, then this ‘Mural’ is larger and more detailed than many. ‘Mural’ is described as ‘a haunting ‘confession’ by a psychopath known only as D. Held in a secure facility, he has been asked by his psychiatrist, Dr Reynolds, to write down his thoughts, admissions, anxieties and uncertainties. They are at first revealed through the stories of other people’s lives and obsessions.’
I want to know more about D’s crimes, and I want to know where he is being held. But as I kept reading, I realised such detail is largely irrelevant. As an aside, I was led to this novel by Lisa, one of my Chief Reading Enablers, whose review https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/09/03/m... had me ruminating about transgressive fiction while admiring the cover. Then, I ventured into the rabbit hole, reading how D used the story of Harry Ellis to best explain what provoked his crimes ‘through the prism of someone else’s revelations’. I kept being distracted: by my knowledge of Havelock Ellis, by the photographs scattered throughout the novel, by reference to the works of Mervyn Napier Waller some of whose works are in the Australian War Memorial’s Hall of Memory.
I kept arresting my read, to try to distinguish fact from fiction, to wonder about the significance of D’s meeting with his boyhood friend, about the role of both religion and parents, about life and truth. The further the novel progressed, the more I wondered about the many ways in which parents can destroy their children.
I circled back to the epigraph:
‘Parents make a child and strive above all else to destroy it. I said, my parents just like yours and every parent altogether and everywhere. Parents afford the luxury of children and kill them. And they all have their assorted, equivalent methods.’ (Reunion Thomas Bernhard)
Yes, I can distinguish some of the influences on D, but without knowing what he did or specifically why, I am left to ponder. Which may well be Mr Downes’s intention.
‘My mind, at any rate, is where I’ve always lived.’
‘A woman returns to Australia to clear out her father's house, with an eye to transforming the contents into The weight of the past …
Here’s the blurb:
‘A woman returns to Australia to clear out her father's house, with an eye to transforming the contents into an art installation in the tradition of the revered Chinese artist Song Dong. What she hasn't reckoned with is the tangle of jealousies, resentments, and familial complications that she had thought, in leaving the country, she had put behind her - a tangle that ensnares her before she arrives.’
I feel like a voyeur, reading this first-person monologue addressed to the unnamed narrator’s partner Teun in London. The narrator, an artist who fled Australia for London years earlier, thinks (briefly) that she can deal with clearing her father’s house by transforming the contents into an art installation. Realising that this is not possible for her, she arranges for rubbish skips to be delivered. A weight is temporarily lifted, but action as well as intent is required. And this is a difficult job for the narrator: possessions evoke memories, as does the rubbish accrued during the life of her childhood family, which now needs to be cleared. The rubbish is both physical and metaphorical. As I read, I wondered whether the idea of an art installation was an attempt at objectivity, a detached look at items though their connection to her father rather than their relevance to her? Or could it be the adoption of a process the narrator is familiar with as an artist: the need to prepare for an exhibition? Speaking of which, how important is her Wall of ‘Still Lives’?
How reliable is our narrator? How objective are her views? By the time I finished the first part of this novel, I realised her objectivity no longer mattered to me. What mattered was her perception, her description of reality, the fact that she was overwhelmed by the past. I kept trying to distinguish a timeframe for elements of the story, and then laughed at myself for doing so. Why? How many of us organise our thoughts into a strict chronological order, distinguishing cause and effect without any emotional overlay? Hmm.
Part Two of the narrative sees the narrator both clearing (and cleaning) the house as well as catching up with old friends who shared her history of anorexia (despite her partner Teun advising her not to). Will the narrator regret this? I am not sure.
Is it possible to escape the past? Should we even try?
Yes, this novel has me thinking. I am leaving the narrator behind to explore my own reality.
‘Under the moonlight, the deserted cemetery lay quiet and sombre, its headstones glistening with rain that was there a while earlier.’
In part, this is‘Under the moonlight, the deserted cemetery lay quiet and sombre, its headstones glistening with rain that was there a while earlier.’
In part, this is the story of a fictional street Chinese storyteller called Ah Sin. In the life created for him, Ah Sin came to Australia during the 19th century goldrush in Victoria. Ah Sin’s life is the subject of a PhD thesis in creative writing being written by Zhang Baohui, a Chinese student, under the supervision of Professor Stacey Ahsin.
Ah Sin’s story becomes entwined in Zhang Baohui’s story: his thoughts and struggles are included, and both stories are edited by Stacey Ahsin. As I read, I kept wondering about both Stacey Ahsin’s edits, and the Chinese characters included in the text.
My reading slows as I think about some of the questions raised:
‘What is first contact? Is that a product of the mind or of the times? How many first contacts have already taken place before the first real contact occurs?’ Must all such contacts necessarily lead to conflicts? Must cultures necessarily come to blows with each other when they come into contact?’
And wonder about answers.
I read on, and at some stage I realise that Zhang Baohui died before completing his PhD and that Stacey Ahsin wants to see the work published. But publication of such a work requires compromise because of the impact of commercial considerations on cultural differences. And I wonder how much editing Stacey Ahsin thinks the work will require. And will the editing detract from Zhang Baohui’s work?
I keep reading, agreeing that
‘It is only by dreaming that we can make things happen.’
I drift, reading Ah Sin’s stories, remembering Confucian stories from my own reading over fifty years ago, drawn into worlds and patterns about which I know little.
And then, I am caught in this net:
‘The easiest way to approach history is through figures. History in fact is an account book. What went missing from it is memory. And the other thing missing is silence, or silences. Or perhaps I need to clarify it more specifically. It’s not memory that is missing. It is the mind. History has no idea what went through the mind of a fictional character in a fictional place at a fictional time. Historians, the accountants of time, want us to believe that they are the pillars of history because they have written about it, recording it, enlarging it, dignifying it or denigrating it according to their own views, based on their readings of other histories. But they never manage to record a single breath breathed by say Ah Sin, my character, or a single trace of thought that went through his mind at a particular historical moment. Do I exist to simply serve the purpose of matching my character’s life in the chronology of their fictionalised histories? Or do I write from my own imagined memory, out of a silence that is as deeply buried as some gold in a pre-historic period in the mind and the heart?’
I found this novel fascinating. It gave me a different view of part of Australia’s history while reminding me that history is a collection of singular tales rather than a collective story. This is a novel within a novel: an experimental metafiction which takes the reader on a challenging journey through culture, history and expectations.
I was led to this novel by one of my chief reading enablers, a well-known reading influencer, Lisa at ANZ ‘You do want Mummy to be happy, don’t you?’
I was led to this novel by one of my chief reading enablers, a well-known reading influencer, Lisa at ANZ LitLovers LitBLog (https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/06/25/a...) (the link takes you to Lisa’s excellent review of this novel).
I was intrigued and, by the time I finished reading, very grateful to have grown to adulthood in a world before the pervasive ubiquity of social media took hold.
Aṅụrị’s stepmother, Ophelia, is a ‘mumfluencer’. She built her reputation by documenting and sharing every aspect of Aṅụrị’s childhood on social media. Ophelia has built a lucrative empire, and now that Aṅụrị does not want to be involved, Ophelia has transferred her expectations onto Aṅụrị’s sister Noelle.
‘She built her world on Aṅụrị’s back and the stubborn foundation was shifting.’
Aṅụrị, now aged twenty-five, has rebelled and moved out of home. Aṅụrị is fighting her own demons, including alcohol dependency and impulse buying. Fortunately, Aṅụrị has two very good friends, and the three of them support each other. Estranged from her family but deeply attached to Noelle, Aṅụrị would do anything to prevent Noelle being subjected to the same pressures that she was.
As the story unfolded, I thought about the role social media plays in the lives of so many. Actions and looks are judged instantly, positive feedback is craved, negative feedback can overwhelm. Influencers are frequently treated as oracles: their utterances taken as a form of gospel. Aṅụrị, with the help of her therapist, Ammah, is aware of the impact on her own life. Her father, Nkem, seems to have accepted what Ophelia does, and seems detached from the possibility of any negative impacts on his daughters.
And so, Aṅụrị initiates legal action.
‘It hadn’t been done before so interest was high. It was a spectacle, no matter how one looked at it. The adult child of a well-known influencer initiating legal action against her parent.’
There is dark humour scattered within this novel, providing some relief against Aṅụrị’s pain as she battles her own demons as well as Ophelia. What responsibilities do parents have in the online age; what rights do children have against exploitation?
‘Gone with the Wind provides a kind of skeleton key, unlocking America’s illusions about itself.’
I was intrigued. It’s been a long, long time since I ‘Gone with the Wind provides a kind of skeleton key, unlocking America’s illusions about itself.’
I was intrigued. It’s been a long, long time since I read 'Gone with the Wind’, and even longer since I first saw the movie. How can a movie about a fictional antebellum South hold any key to America? I read on; I learned why Black is now capitalised:
‘The dehumanization of the enslaved included the stripping of African tribal, ethnic or national identities that people with European heritage can claim, identities that are customarily capitalized. This is one reason for arguing that Black should be capitalized whereas white should not (as it can be differentiated with capitalized national and ethnic identities).
I learned also that a ten-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr, was amongst the group of children of the black Ebenezer Baptists Church choir who sang for an all-white audience at a ball at a plantation the night before the Atlanta premiere of Gone with the Wind in 1939. I kept following the redefinition of slavery as harmless and the slaves as grateful. In some regards, the movie is different from the book, but neither makes for a comfortable look at the past.
And, just as I was settling into using Gone with the Wind as a key, the events of January 2021 brought my thoughts from fiction, the past and into the uncomfortable near present.
Ms Churchwell takes themes from Gone with the Wind to examine aspects of American culture. It is an uncomfortable read: I may not be American, but several of the themes apply here in Australia and elsewhere. Consider the plight of native peoples, the taking of their land, their subjugation and near genocide.
‘Slavery was abolished by the war, but white supremacism was not. The problem was that white Americans could abhor slavery, and fight a war to end it, and also abhor Black people.’
I kept reading. Ms Churchwell includes confronting information (including photographs) about lynch mobs, the Ku Klux Klan, the double standards applied. This is not a comfortable read. It is thought-provoking, a reminder that uncomfortable history is often ignored or rewritten to make it more ‘comfortable’. Yes, history should be revised as new facts are discovered but exclusion is not revision.
Anyone who has read the book (and most who have watched the movie) will know that Scarlett is not a nice person. Anyone who knows their history will appreciate Ms Churchwell’s distinctions between fiction and fact even if they question some of her conclusions.
Well worth reading.
‘In the end, Scarlett goes home to Tara. Because her deepest romance is with power, neither Ashley nor Rhett can ultimately supply it. Power comes from Tara, the plantation she is always fighting to save, the supposed survival of which justifies everything she does. But survival is a euphemism for ownership.’
Lisa’s review https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/09/23/h... of this book led me (as her reviews so often do) to read this book. I was curious. I cannot remember when I first encountered the poem ‘My Country’, and I really only know the second verse. Memorising poems is not one of my skills, so I went searching for the entire poem, and here it is:
The love of field and coppice, Of green and shaded lanes. Of ordered woods and gardens Is running in your veins, Strong love of grey-blue distance Brown streams and soft dim skies I know but cannot share it, My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror – The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring-barked forest All tragic to the moon, The sapphire-misted mountains, The hot gold hush of noon. Green tangle of the brushes, Where lithe lianas coil, And orchids deck the tree-tops And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country! Her pitiless blue sky, When sick at heart, around us, We see the cattle die – But then the grey clouds gather, And we can bless again The drumming of an army, The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country! Land of the Rainbow Gold, For flood and fire and famine, She pays us back threefold – Over the thirsty paddocks, Watch, after many days, The filmy veil of greenness That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country, A wilful, lavish land – All you who have not loved her, You will not understand – Though earth holds many splendours, Wherever I may die, I know to what brown country My homing thoughts will fly.
It is a wonderful anthem to Australia. Dorothea Mackellar was born on 1 July 1885 in Sydney. She was a third generation Australian. Dorothea was the third of four children born to Dr Charles Mackellar and his wife Marion. Dorothea had two older brothers, Keith and Eric, and a younger brother, Malcolm. In writing this biography, Ms Fitzgerald was able to draw on the Mackellar Papers held at the Mitchell Library which included Ms McKellar’s diaries from 1907. Ms Mackellar lived a privileged life: born into wealth she did not have to seek paid work; unmarried and childless she had more time to pursue her own interests. She was, I read, a keen traveller. In addition to spending long periods in Europe, she also travelled to the Caribbean, Egypt and Japan. She was also, clearly, a keen observer. And, while ‘My Country’ may be the only poem many of us are familiar with, it is not her only work. Ms Fitzgerald does a wonderful job of taking the reader into Ms Mackellar’s life, of making us aware of her ties to family and her appreciation of the Australian landscape. Privileged her life may have been but it was not always happy. I finished this book, pleased to have learned something about the life and times of Dorothea Mackellar. Ms Mackellar loved that Australia embraced My Country as an unofficial anthem, making her a household name. But this success, as Ms Fitzgerald writes was a constraint. ‘She could not move on from it no matter how hard she tried.’ Which makes me want to locate and read more of her work.
‘The plan was to leave home at four, reaching the city around five.’
Rachel and Rory Sullivan have had a difficult year. Between her cancer diagnosis a‘The plan was to leave home at four, reaching the city around five.’
Rachel and Rory Sullivan have had a difficult year. Between her cancer diagnosis and treatment and his bankruptcy, things have been tough for the family of four. Their children Emmet and Bridie are negotiating the shoals of teenage-hood, and Rory’s brother Sean complicates life further. The family decide to celebrate survival by attending a Coldplay concert at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium. Yes, the tickets are expensive and increasingly difficult to obtain. Rachel and Rory have platinum tickets and Emmet and Bridie have tickets in the field. Because they won’t all be together, there is a plan to meet after the concert.
Except … only three of them arrive. The fourth has vanished.
Each member of the family has secrets. And as is often the case when someone goes missing, the police initially focus on the remaining family members. The reader knows something of the secrets being kept and the resulting stress. Every member of the family feels guilty. The tension increases. Well, this certainly kept me turning the pages to find out what had happened. I can only imagine the anguish experienced by the remaining members of the family. Yes, social media has a part to play as do adultery, alcohol, blackmail, friendship, guilt, the dark web, and trust.
I liked the way that Ms Carroll wove the various threads together, building a plausible story as it heads towards its conclusion. The different points of view increased possibilities while helping to maintain the tension. This is the first of Ms Carroll’s novels I have read: I’ll be adding others to my reading list.
In a novel which unfolds over seven parts, shifting between Greece and Australia, between mother, son and daughter, and across‘Start when I was born.’
In a novel which unfolds over seven parts, shifting between Greece and Australia, between mother, son and daughter, and across time between the 1940s and the 2020s, Mr Polites tells his mother’s story.
‘What do you mean it’s not interesting? People will want my story. My god. I sound like one of those wogs that used to come into the library asking where they tell their story. You know, they publish their own books. But my story is unique. I promise.’
While it is a truism that all stories are unique, this novel took me into a world of which I have little direct experience. Those who migrate are torn between two countries and cultures. One country is left but never forgotten, another is entered but often never home. In this novel, the mother, Honoured Citizen, has lived several lives both in Greece and in Australia. She reminds her son that while he knows her as mother, she has had other lives. And gently, gradually, those lives unfold.
I am taken to a village in Greece, to a home in which children are born (and sometimes die), and where Honoured Citizen herself had to spend a year in hospital as a child. How hard that must have been, for her and her family. We follow her story through adulthood, migration to Australia, marriage and children, until 2022, when Honoured Citizen is ill in hospital. There are overlaps between her story and those of her son, All Holy Citizen and her daughter, Resurrection Citizen. I read and wonder. And occasionally, I slip out of the novel to think of the past, of the many lives of others I have known. I feel invited to consider and contemplate, to recognise the journeys made by those who come before us. I am chastened, remembering the questions I meant to ask of my own family members, questions to which I can no longer expect answers.
I loved the first part of this novel and was gradually drawn into the balance. Yes, an interesting story.
‘Don’t be selfish, okay? Growing up is about taking responsibility and sometimes doing stuff you don’t like …’
So, there I was, drawn to the cover of a‘Don’t be selfish, okay? Growing up is about taking responsibility and sometimes doing stuff you don’t like …’
So, there I was, drawn to the cover of a book featuring a bin chicken with a bubble tea. Cover art is not usually my thing, but how could I resist? Meet Sylvia Nguyen, the only child of Vietnamese refugee parents, trying to find her own place in the world. Parental expectations are high: they wanted Sylvia to study law and had arranged any amount of tutoring to achieve this. Living in Yagoona (western Sydney) is challenging for Sylvia when she attends her prestigious high school in the city. And it all becomes so much harder when Sylvia decides law is not for her.
Sylvia’s story unfolds in a series of short vignettes covering her life from childhood to early adulthood. And through these vignettes, the reader gains some understanding of the two worlds many refugees (and then their children) inhabit, and the overwhelming desire parents have for their children to achieve while the children themselves often want to fit into a part of the world they can identify as belonging to. And Sylvia, what does she want? Well, while Sylvia works out what she wants and her character develops, the reader experiences quite a bit of not-so-subtle racism as Sylvia describes the world around her. Did I find this uncomfortable? Not really. Although I suspect I am applying a double standard and being politically incorrect. Hmm. Can racism be relative?
‘Funny Ethnics was on at 7 but we got there at 7.15. The room was warm and damp with human breath. It smelled like Australia Day: beer, Chiko rolls and Lynx deodorant.’
I chuckled through some of the descriptions of people and place, of clothing and hairstyle choices. I vaguely remember being a teenager, but my background is excruciatingly monocultural.
Did I enjoy this novel? Yes, in parts. Looking at the world through different eyes is almost always worthwhile.
‘It was a freezing day in January 2016 when I passed through a long-locked door and first set foot into what had been St Joseph’s Orphanage.’
I read th‘It was a freezing day in January 2016 when I passed through a long-locked door and first set foot into what had been St Joseph’s Orphanage.’
I read this book last month and have struggled to find the words to review it. Child abuse is never a comfortable topic and yet ignoring the fact of it enables abuse to continue. Yes, while there has rightly been a significant focus on institutional abuse, most abuse occurs in the home and involves family members. Very few of those survivors receive justice either. I feel a need to state this upfront, so I can move beyond personal lived experience into the world uncovered by Ms Keneally.
While Ms Keneally focusses on St Joseph’s – a Catholic orphanage in Vermont in the United States – the patterns of abuse are similar to what has occurred in Australian orphanages. Remember the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the final report of which was released in 2017? Institutional abuse was not (is not) confined to the Catholic Church, other religious groups as well as secular groups were also part of the Royal Commission’s inquiry.
Central to Ms Keneally’s book is the story of Sally Dale. Sally was two years old when she arrived at St Joseph’s Orphanage in 1940, with three siblings. Sally was separated from her three siblings as soon as she arrived. Sally stayed at St Joseph’s for more than twenty years.
In 1993, Joseph Barquin approached Philip White, a lawyer, and told his story of terror at the hands of the Sisters of Providence. He spoke of what he had seen and of approaching the Catholic Diocese of Burlington requesting help. He was ignored. He wanted to sue the church. Mr White, who had devoted his career to ‘challenging and changing the prevailing wisdom about young victims of sexual abuse’ fought long and hard to try to obtain justice for Mr Barquin and other victims. Reading this reminded me of several similar cases in Australia. Any lingering respect I still had for the Catholic Church was destroyed during this process.
‘Often the traumatic memories seemed to work just like normal memory, meaning that an episode might blur over time. For some people, the more intense an experience was, the more likely they were to retain it as a vivid narrative. But there was a threshold, at least for some. If an experience was too disturbing, it sometimes vanished. Whether it was actively repressed or just forgotten, it seemed to disappear from consciousness for decades, returning only in response to a specific trigger, such as driving by an orphanage or seeing a nun at the supermarket.’
I kept reading, horrified to read of children as pharmaceutical test subjects:
‘It was mind-boggling to contemplate that the same children who were subject to humiliating punishment for wetting the bed were at the same time given a drug that made them more likely to urinate.’
Those poor children, humiliated and taught to fear those whom they should have been able to trust and to rely on for guidance and support. Some of those children, as adults, were brave enough to speak out. Sally Dale and Joseph Barquin are two whose accounts have stayed with me.
‘More than anything else, what the St Joseph’s plaintiffs wanted was recognition: they wanted the world to acknowledge their agony, and to say it should never have happened.’ What they got instead was a small check, the amount of which was yet another secret.’
I wonder whether, in (say) twenty years we will still be talking about examples of institutional child abuse? Sadly, I am sure child abuse will continue, and we will still be talking (helplessly) about it. Meticulously researched and well written. Confronting, disturbing and uncomfortable.
From the Author’s Note:
‘All the events described were reported by at least one person but more often by many. In cases of abuse where usually only a survivor reports it, other individuals abused by the same person or in the same institution described the same kind of abuse.’
‘Ghosts of the Orphanage’ won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction in 2024, awarded as part of the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.
This is a very uncomfortable read. Yes, I knew that some skulls and skeletons of Indigenous Tasmanians had been tak‘It is time we all knew the truth.’
This is a very uncomfortable read. Yes, I knew that some skulls and skeletons of Indigenous Tasmanians had been taken by Europeans. Yes, I knew that some viewed Indigenous Tasmanians as a unique race and sought their remains for scientific examination. And yes, I knew that Truganini’s skeleton was on public display in the Tasmanian Museum well into the twentieth century before being (finally) returned to the Aboriginal community in 1976 and cremated.
What I did not know was how widespread the practice of grave robbing and desecration of human remains was. This book by Ms Pybus lifted the scales from my eyes. I had heard the name of Dr William Crowther mentioned in relation to this, but I did not realise that he was one of many involved.
‘The desecration of graves and mutilation of the bodies of First People no longer looked to be an isolated act by one or two morally deficient individuals; rather, it was a systematic process baked into the colonial project from the very beginning.'
Indigenous Tasmanians were viewed as scientific curiosities, like the thylacine and the platypus. Collectors and museum curators in Europe sought such curiosities for their collections. Reading this book, I learn that amongst their suppliers were several colonial governors, several politicians as well as Lady Jane Franklin, whose callous treatment of the Indigenous Tasmanian girl she called Mathinna was cruel and disgusting. In Britain, I read, that Sir Joseph Banks, the Duke of Newcastle and Professor Thomas Huxley were amongst the many who solicited human specimens from the colony. All of this took place without any regard to the cultural practices of the Indigenous Tasmanians. Skulls became trophies, bodies were mutilated to prevent other collectors from taking entire skeletons.
‘The frontier conflict was a boon to phrenologists. The skulls that were trophies for vigilante settlers were objects of scientific enquiry for the naval surgeons redeployed into the colonial medical establishment.’
In page after page of sobering revelations, three uncomfortable facts in particular stick in my mind. Firstly, that when he died one doctor had more than 180 skeletons. Secondly, that Truganini’s own wishes for the disposal of her body after her death were so callously disregarded. She was buried, despite her wishes, and then her body was exhumed by the Royal Society of Tasmania. Thirdly, the exhumation of Wauba Debar, whose memorial I have visited in Bicheno, in 1893. The exhumation was undertaken by the Tasmanian Museum in Hobart because of a scarcity of Indigenous remains.
As Ms Pybus writes: ‘Most people know the word for a systematic process of total dispossession, destruction and dehumanisation. It is a thorny word, genocide, freighted with much more disquieting baggage than most Australians can bear to own. I would not own it myself for a long time. After years of research into the hidden corners of the history of my beautiful island home, I find the fact of it inescapable.’
In this book, Ms Pybus shines a light on a very uncomfortable aspect of our history.
‘It seems to me that opening a marriage is less about trading permissions and more about riding a force. This is its brutal and wonderful power, its u‘It seems to me that opening a marriage is less about trading permissions and more about riding a force. This is its brutal and wonderful power, its unstable elemental property, what makes it bloom like nitrous oxide and slide like mercury; the final stage of labour, irreversible and bloody.’
Katia Ariel, in a happy heterosexual marriage and the mother of three children, falls in love with another woman. In this book, Ms Ariel writes of her life and loves. She shares stories of her family: leaving Odessa with her mother as a child for life in Australia; marriage to Noah; their three children, especially the fraught birth of daughter Delphi; and then falling in love with a woman. Ms Ariel’s life, and that of her family, are turned upside down. What does it mean?
‘As I chop the coriander, I contemplate that I am a dialogue of longings, I am a being who comes into frequent contact with death, mostly the death of assumption that two people owe each other a lifetime of repetitive emotional statements and that there is safety in that. When I am in the roiling furnace of this life-choice, which is always, I am a dying thing, I am an ancient bronze scarab, I am a cockroach, I am a diamond.’
We each live one life (or so I believe) and choices matter. Ms Ariel has not made her choice lightly and is aware of the consequences. The world has not collapsed, those directly impacted adapt and adjust, or so it seems. As the story unfolds, we learn more about Ms Ariel’s family and history.
‘I’m often afraid too. I’m not telling you that this is easy, or risk-free. I am just telling you that I’m never going to live my life the old way again. I will stay in this because it answers questions about who I am. Because once upon a time I fell in love with this man, but now I am in something undeniable with this woman. And, mum, because I am a woman who loves women. I have always been that, I just didn’t know that’s what it was.’
As an engaged reader, I found myself wondering why I viewed this story any differently from similar stories where a member of a heterosexual couple finds themselves drawn to another (opposite sex) partner. Is it because it is less common? Is it because I am biased? Is it because children are involved? Is it because I am old, and have been married for over 45 years? Hmm. I’ve decided that it is a combination of ‘less common’ and a reluctance to accept that sexuality can be mutable. Inconsistent, I know, especially as I know several couples in similar circumstances. So I revise my assumptions and read on. The language Ms Aerial uses to tell her story is rich in imagery, full of awareness, truth, and hope. Yes, this is one person’s journey but several of the issues raised are relevant to the formation and continuation of all intimate relationships.
‘It’s our optimism that kills me, the relentless trying, that feels like the loveliest animal impulse in all our endeavours. The way we pull but mostly push. Push back the ending we know so well, securing our wishful boats against that swift dark tide.’
‘Out here, under the fig trees, a different ending was always possible.’
Frank Herbert’s family have gathered at Tinaroo Dam in Far North Queensland fo‘Out here, under the fig trees, a different ending was always possible.’
Frank Herbert’s family have gathered at Tinaroo Dam in Far North Queensland for his daughter Lily’s wedding. Frank hasn’t been back since his father Joe died a year earlier and he is preoccupied. Frank is concerned about the state of his marriage, worried about some business issues, and wanting everything to go smoothly for Lily. Here, at the dam, Frank feels the presence of Joe acutely. The water level is low, like Frank’s mood, and objects are emerging. As I read this, I was reminded of Old Adaminaby, another drowned town, in the Snowy Mountains where I spend a lot of my time. During drought, remnants of the old town became visible causing distress to some who had lived there.
The story shifts between present and past, between the weekend of the wedding and 1956, when Joe was a child living with his family in the town of Tinaroo, abandoned and drowned once the dam was completed. Three generations of the Herbert men are the focus of this story: Frank, his grandfather, Victor, who was the town’s butcher, and his father Joe who was Victor’s youngest son.
Joe refused to speak of his father, but his anger was palpable. Frank did not know why, and he worries that the men in his family might be cursed. And Frank has time to reflect as he follows his wife’s instructions in relation to wedding preparations.
Back in 1956, we learn more about Victor, his charm, and his violence. Victor has clear ideas about masculinity, which he inflicts on his wife and children, especially on Joe. And it is Joe’s story, which we learn, but Frank does not, which is central. The tension between Victor and Joe is palpable: the impact of both violence and a betrayal shapes the balance of Joe’s life and his relationship with his son. A reminder of the pervasive nature of intergenerational trauma, of the toxicity of gender stereotypes for both men and women. It is too late, now, for Victor and Joe, but Frank may have a chance. I hope so.
Beautifully written and recommended.
‘This ground had been worked so hard for so long, and now this long dry. It was weak and thirsty. There was talk of feeding the Johnstone River into Tinaroo and raising the dam wall. Meanwhile, the spillway had been upgraded to meet a greater likelihood of flooding. Drought or deluge, as the climate grew ever more volatile, water would be the determining factor.’
‘How to survive and thrive if you are neurodivergent.’
In this book, Ms Udokporo writes of her experiences in growing up with dyslexia. She writes of t‘How to survive and thrive if you are neurodivergent.’
In this book, Ms Udokporo writes of her experiences in growing up with dyslexia. She writes of the challenges she faced and the strategies she and her parents used to help her. Ms Udokporo grew up in England, in a family with a strong connection to their Nigerian culture and heritage. Her dyslexia diagnosis at age 11 followed difficulties with spelling at school. Ms Udokporo is clearly highly motivated: she started a tuition business (Enrich Learning) as a twelve-year-old, gained a scholarship to the prestigious Christ’s Hospital boarding school in West Sussex, and completed two degrees before turning twenty-two. Ms Udokporo is an entrepreneur, educator, dyslexia author, neurodiversity consultant, and content creator.
She wrote this book (her first) because she wanted people to know that neurodivergence is not only experienced by white males, and dyslexia can be found in people of every colour, creed or circumstance.
I found this book interesting. In writing about her own experiences (both good and bad) Ms Udokporo provides the encouragement that other neurodiverse people may find helpful. I was particularly interested in some of the strategies described, including the use of different coloured paper to make it easier to read.
I would recommend this book to anyone living or working with dyslexia.
‘We British are a curious bunch, doing everything half-heartedly. Look at the French. They are not ashamed to teach their culture to backward races un‘We British are a curious bunch, doing everything half-heartedly. Look at the French. They are not ashamed to teach their culture to backward races under their charge. Their attitude to the native ruler is clear. They say to him: ‘This land has belonged to you because you have been strong enough to hold it. By the same token it now belongs to us. If you are not satisfied come out and fight us.’ What do we British do? We flounder from one expedient to its opposite. We do not only promise to secure old savage tyrants on their thrones – or more likely filthy animal skins – we not only do that, but now we go out of our way to invent chiefs where there were none before.’
Chronologically, the final book in The African Trilogy fits between the first and second novels. And, while it might seem logical to read it there, I think the trilogy works better if you read the books in the order they were written. Why? Well, having given us an understanding of traditional Igbo life (in ‘Things Fall Apart’) and the story of Obi, caught between two worlds (in ‘No Longer at Ease’), Chinua Achebe takes us into the disintegration of traditional Igbo life as British colonial administration undermines Igbo customary practices.
The novel is set in the 1920s and begins with a bitter feud between the villages of Umuaro and Okperi. A piece of land is disputed, and the villagers are on the brink of war. Ezeulu, the Chief Priest of Ulu (the ruling deity of Umuaro) advises against warfare. His is a lone voice.
Peace is enforced when Captain T. K. Winterbottom, the British colonial official in charge, causes the destruction of all of the firearms within Umuaro. Bloodshed is avoided, but not all residents of Umuaro are happy. They believe that Ezeulu has betrayed his people after he testifies that Umuaro has no legitimate claim to the land.
Some years pass, relatively peacefully. Christianity has made its way to Umuaro, converting some villagers and convincing others that worship of their old gods is both sinful and futile. Several issues cause tensions to rise between different Igbo factions while at the same time T.K. Winterbottom prepares to carry out the British policy of indirect rule, which aims to appoint Africans as puppet leaders. He sends emissaries to invite Ezeulu, whom he remembers favourably, to Government Hill in order to name him ‘Paramount Chief’. Ezeulu refuses to comply and is eventually imprisoned for two months.
‘As soon as he comes,’ he [Winterbottom] told Clarke, ‘you are to lock him up in the guardroom. I do not wish to see him until after my return from Enugu. By that time he should have learnt good manners. I won’t have my natives thinking they can treat the administration with contempt.’
Ezeulu has a different view:
‘Tell the white man that Ezeulu will not be anybody’s chief, except Ulu.’
‘What! Shouted Clarke. ‘Is the fellow mad?’
‘I tink so sah,’ said the interpreter.
‘In that case he goes back to prison.’ Clarke was now really angry. What a cheek! A witch-doctor making a fool of the British Administration in public!’
After Ezeulu is released, he returns to Umuaro. His detention over two new moons disrupts the new yam harvest because Ezeulu will not call a new yam festival.
‘But with you,’ continued Ezeulu, ‘I need not speak in riddles. You all know what our custom is. I only call a new festival when there is only one yam left from the last. Today I have three yams and so I know that the time has not come.’
Ezeulu’s refusal to open the harvest causes unrest in the village. This unrest provides an opportunity for a Christian missionary to win more converts. He tells the villagers that anyone who wants to harvest their yams free of divine retribution can do so — by making an offering to the Christian God instead of Ulu.
There’s more to it than this of course. Ezeulu, who sees himself as an arrow in the bow of his God, believes himself to be untouchable. But his authority has been weakened: by officials of the colonial administration, by members of his own family and by rivals within his tribe.
Colonial rule, cultural differences and misunderstandings result in the disintegration of Igbo tradition.
A fitting conclusion to a brilliant trilogy. Highly recommended.
Jennifer (JC-S)
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