A gritty and darkly hilarious novel quaking with life—winner of Australia’s Miles Franklin Award—that follows a queer, First Nations Australian woman as she returns home to face her family and protect the land of their ancestors.
Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent her adulthood avoiding two things: her hometown and prison. A tough, generous, reckless woman accused of having too much … tough, generous, reckless woman accused of having too much lip, Kerry uses anger to fight the avalanche of bullshit the world spews. But now her Pop is dying and she’s an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley for one last visit.
Kerry plans to spend twenty-four hours, tops, across the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of latching on to people—not to mention her chaotic family and the threat of a proposal to develop a prison on Granny Ava’s Island, the family’s spiritual home. On top of that, love may have found Kerry again when a good-looking white fella appears out of nowhere with eyes only for her.
As the fight mounts to stop the development, old wounds open. Surrounded by the ghosts of their Elders and the memories of their ancestors, the Salters are driven by the deep need to make peace with their past while scrabbling to make sense of their present. Kerry just hopes they can come together in time to preserve Granny Ava’s legacy and save their ancestral land.
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This is an incredible book written with confidence, opening up many confronting themes for the reader to think about and to be challenged by.
Kerry Salter is a mouthy woman living on the edge avoiding prison and her family. On her stolen Harley, she heads home because her Pa is dying and she figures all she needs is twenty-four hours and then she can leave. She soon finds that her family and sense of country aren’t easy to escape. Old wounds burst open and when a developer tries to take their river, she’s drawn into the fight.
The trauma of living as an indigenous woman is not sugar coated and the commentary of what the consequences of white settlement in Australia have been for indigenous families covers many things including racism, land rights, the stolen generation and corruption. The author puts us deep into Kerry’s family, the dynamics, the struggles and we see clearly what intergenerational trauma can do.
It might seem that it’s heavy handed but it’s not. The story is sad, and tragic while poking fun in a good-natured way and that’s the talent of the writing by Lucashenko. No wonder she’s won a raft of awards.
The scene around the imagined discussion by the crows is hilarious. And the animals in the story are their own characters. ‘The noise of the Harley didn’t worry Elvis one bit. A small cunning mutt of no discernible heritage, he raged at the bike from the top of the stairs, finding it a worthy adversary. When he recognised Kerry, Elvis leaped off the veranda and beat his half-a-tail wildly in greeting, all the while conspiring to get past her and piss on the bike’s front wheel.‘
The language is at times brutal, yet powerful as it can be in dialogue with her family. This is a very well written book where the language is evocative describing the landscape, the heat and the mood of a fictional Australian country town. There are words which will throw you but after a while you’ll get their meaning as you immerse yourself into the book.
The characters are well drawn and just their nicknames will make you smile, from Pretty Mary, Kerry’s mother, Black Superman, her younger brother, Dr No, one of her nephews. Yet there is also menace and an undercurrent from Kenny, her older brother ‘who had long held the monopoly on anger in the Salter family. Kerry didn’t give a rat’s. She couldn’t see Ken busting her up today.’ The family, immediate and extended become important to Kerry as the secrets of past and present unfold to give her new understanding of them and herself.
It’s a very clever story told with gusto giving us an insight and respect for our First Nation’s people. This one is a must read.
I loved this book. It was a great contemporary story that drew you in but at the same time it doesn’t pull any punches about the impact of the arrival of white settlers on the Australian Aboringines and how today, those effects still remain. The family are as loving as they are dysfunctional but as a reader, I was laughing and crying and raging…all the feels. Check it out.
Brilliant, brilliant book (although that is not its cover, what is it doing there?!). Gritty, moving, funny, heart-breaking…Just go read it already. You won’t regret it.