Overview

Full Product Details

9781920882310

Table of Contents

Reviews

A dreamlike novel from Australian aboriginal author Wright of a dreamtime interrupted as Australian native peoples meet industrial civilization.If you can call it civilization, that is. Perched on the infernally hot salt flats of northern Queensland, at some distance from a sluggish river full of mud and serpents and fish in the monsoon season, is a waterless port town named Desperance, the center of Wright's stately epic. Around Desperance - waterless so long that no one can remember when it stood near water - snakes a ring of aboriginal encampments, each a little more desperate than the next. In one lives a suggestively named old man, Normal Phantom, wise but somewhat feckless, given to making pronouncements in the voice of a presidential Captain Hook. Inside another camp are the Eastend boys, ne'er-do-wells deluxe, who have their difficulties with the neighbors. After all, as the narrator quietly observes, this idea that people should live in harmony was a policy designed by the invader's governments, and not really anything inherent in human nature. Among these 'edge' people, all of the blackfella mob living with quiet breathing in higgily-piggerly, rubbish-dump trash shacks, rivalries unfold, difficulties ensue and untoward events multiply. Imagine Gabriel Garc'a Marquez's fictional town Macondo set on dustier ground and with considerably more magic - and aboriginal mythology - worked into the magical realism, and you have some approximation of Wright's fluent tale, in which not much happens but a large cast of memorable characters are allowed to show themselves: a Bible-thumper, a psychopath whose motto is Hit first, talk later, some quirky types and some just plain normal folk. Wright, a member of the Waanyi people, turns in stretches of mixed-language patois that is a pleasure but sometimes a challenge to follow ( Big cyclone coming, boy, everybody barrba, jayi, yurrngi-jbangka - you better come with us ) as the tale winds its way to the end.A latter-day epic that speaks, lyrically, to the realities and aspirations of aboriginal life. (Kirkus Reviews)

Prue writes: The novel tells the interconnected stories of several inhabitants of the fictional town of Desperance, situated on the Gulf of Carpentaria in northwest Queensland. There, the Aboriginal people of the Pricklebush clan are embroiled in a number of conflicts with various groups in the community, including the white inhabitants of Desperance, the local law enforcement and government officials, and a large multinational mining operation that has been established on their traditional sacred land. The narrative chronicles the interpersonal relationships shared between the characters that populate Desperance as they negotiate their world. This novel is written as it would be spoken aloud. Alexis Wright gathers language itself to her and the abundance of her writing spills new forms of it across the page, creating writing that is unique and familiar and always enchanting but without losing its grittiness at the same time. The chapters weave and bend time and delve into the fantastical, some would even say magical. For me this book was an incredible experience, a fantastical journey and a thoroughly satisfying read. It is a novel of an Australia we don't always know and sometimes can't imagine. It offers a curious, beautiful and firm sense of hope to its readers, and you really can't ask for a better reward from a novel that demands, and deserves, your total commitment.

Author Information

Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Her books include Grog War, a study of alcohol abuse in the outback town of Tennant Creek, and the novel Plains of Promise, which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize, the Age Book of the Year Award and the NSW Premier's Award for Fiction, and translated into French as Les Plaines de l'espoir.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available