In any event, although I read 10 books within my challenge parameters by about March or April, I did not post any reviews at the time.

So here is the revised sign-up post PLUS six reviews in one post.

The challenge:

I opted for the Franklin again: read 10 books, review 6.

The other main parameter for my challenge this year was that it would all be non-fiction. I read a few great non-fiction books by Australian women early in the year, thanks to the various e-library services I’m signed up to having more interesting non-fiction than fiction, so that inspired me. It was also a challenge element because I normally read more fiction than non-fiction.

In addition, I aimed to:
– read at least two books by, or primarily featuring, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander women (ACHIEVED!)
– read at least two books by, or primarily featuring, women from non-English speaking backgrounds (defined as having grown up in a house where the parents or parent figures communicated with one another primarily in a language other than English) (ACHIEVED if I include the books in the first category – otherwise, I did not quite make this one)
– read at least two books by, or primarily featuring, women of colour (ACHIEVED)
– read at least two classics (as per the request by the AWW organisers) (I think NOT ACHIEVED, although maybe some count, as noted below, and I think a couple of the books I read will become classics…)

I was hoping to tag all books by Australian women which I read this year on my Goodreads bookshelf, but I only managed to remember with my challenge books and a few others.

The books:

So, here are the books I read as part of the challenge (plus three), and how they meet the challenge elements above.

Busted Out Laughing: Dot Collard’s Story, Dot Collard: by, and primarily featuring, an Aboriginal woman; possibly a classic?

The Hate Race, Maxine Beneba Clarke: by, and primarily featuring, a woman of colour

A Long Time Coming, Melanie Joosten

The Mind of a Thief, Patti Miller

Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea, Marie Munkara: by, and primarily featuring, an Aboriginal woman

Reckoning: A Memoir, Magda Szubanski

Sydney, Delia Falconer

Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather, Karen Lamb

This House of Grief, Helen Garner: does this count as a classic?

Tiger’s Eye: A Memoir, Inga Clendinnen

Wicked But Virtuous, Mirka Mora: by, and primarily featuring, a woman from a non-English speaking background; also, possibly a classic?

Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee, Chloe Hooper

Victoria: The Queen, Julia Baird

The reviews:

A joint review: telling the stories of the dispossessed

I want to start with a joint review of Busted Out Laughing, The Mind of a Thief, Of Ashes and Rivers and Tall Man. These four books have in common that they are about Aboriginal people or communities in some ways. Two of them (Busted and Ashes) are by Aboriginal women, about their lives – one written directly by the author, the other “as told to” an amanuensis, Beryl Hacker. The other two are by white women, telling the story of a place or community.

Let’s start with Busted Out Laughing. Dot Collard is a famous actor you’ve probably never heard of. Busted only touches on that part of her life towards the end of the book, though, as Collard did not become an actor until she was in her sixties. Busted tells the story of her life, and she lived a lot of it before hitting the stage.

Here is where I admit that I didn’t take enough notes of some of these books before returning them to the library, and Busted is in that category. So my review must, of necessity, be based on my recollection, which means I cannot provide a lot of detail.

What I can tell you, however, is what struck me.

First and foremost: Busted describes the impact of government control on every day lives of Collard and her community. That control was intrusive, demeaning and unjust.

The atrocities committed, however, did not mean that there were no joys or love in life. This brings me to the second thing that struck me: Collard retained her humour and love throughout. There is a good reason for the title of the book – there is a lot of laughter in it. It is, overall, a joyful story, and a family story.

Thirdly: a great strength of Busted as a story is that it is in Collard’s own voice. I cannot emphasise the importance of this, particularly because part of the wrong in what was done to the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples in Australia was the removal of their voices.

I highly recommend Busted. It is a fantastic book, and reading it gives us the chance to hear a voice from a group which has too often been silenced in this country.

Turning, then, to Ashes. As a child, Munkara had some outward or apparent privileges as a child that Collard did not – she was not raised in material poverty and had access to education. But Munkara is a member of the Stolen Generations. The material wealth of the family in which Munkara grew up could not in any way make up for the tragedy that comes with removal – detaching a child from a family in which she is loved and which she loves; exposing her to the loss of culture and a sense of place as a consequence; and exposing her to abuse. These are all great wrongs.

Ashes describes these wrongs very clearly. Once again, the book is not without its joys as Munkara re-establishes a relationship with her family, but those joys are bittersweet.

Ashes should be prescribed reading for all Australians. It is a story we, as a country, need to hear repeated again and again, so that nobody can forget how terribly our First Peoples have been treated.

Tall Man continues this theme. It is the story of what happened on Palm Island in 2004, when Doomadgee, a young man, was killed in police custody. That was followed by riots (or “riots”), a serious police response and a large number of arrests. One of the white police officers was ultimately charged in relation to Doomadgee’s death. A jury found him not guilty, and Tall Man tells this story as well. (Damages for racial discrimination were later awarded as a consequence: Wotton v Queensland (No 5) [2016] FCA 1457.)

Tall Man was not written by a member of the community in question, but Hooper seems to have done thorough research, becoming as close to the community as she could be, and telling the story through their voices as much as possible. To me as another outsider, Hooper’s telling seems empathetic and careful. Further, she tells the story not only of what happened in 2004, but also of the injustices in the creation of the community in the first place – the people of Palm Island were all brought there from elsewhere in Queensland. This is an important part of the story of Palm Island and, again, a necessary tale to tell.

Finally, we come to Mind of a Thief. This is about Wellington, a town in mid-west NSW, and the Wiradjuri people who come from that area. (I was somewhat comforted to discover that Miller used the phrase to refer to herself, or to European minds generally, not to Wiradjuri minds in any way.)

Miller grew up near Wellington herself and, at the time of her research and writing of the book, her mother still lived there. She tells how she decided to write the book in order to tell the story of the area. She was inspired in part because (some of) the Wiradjuri people made the first post-Mabo native title claim in 1994, and it was finally resolved (actually as a land claim under the NSW land rights legislation) around the time Miller started her research for the book. In fact, there were two groups of people who disagree as to who the traditional owners of certain parts of land in the Wellington valley are. Miller decided to speak to people on both sides of the divide to get a better understanding of the competing claims, as well as trying to find out what she could about Wiradjuri culture and traditions.

I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as the other three, and I do not think it is anywhere near as important. Miller makes no secret that her search is as much as anything to explore her own personal connection to the land and area where she grew up. This is, in itself, no bad thing. However, in the execution, Miller comes across as self-centred, more interested in navel gazing than telling the story she says she wants to tell. She spends a lot of time explaining that she is not equating her own experiences and connection to the land to that of the Wiradjuri people she spoke to, while seeming to do exactly that.

I think I can understand what Miller was trying to do, but I do not think she walked that narrow line particularly clearly or well.

Rather, what Mind of a Thief does is demonstrate why what is important in telling the story of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (whether as individuals or communities) is to amplify the voices of those people themselves. Busted, Ashes and even Tall Man all do that. Mind of a Thief does not.

The Hate Race

I read The Hate Race very early in the year, and there have been few books I have enjoyed more in 2017.

Beneba Clarke’s writing is fantastic, and that is a large part of it. Another is that she avoids what many memoirs do, and which tends to turn me off: too much navel-gazing. A third part is that I grew up in an area of Sydney not too far from where Beneba Clarke lived, and we are pretty much the same age. This made the setting of Hate Race very recognisable to me, both geographically and culturally.

The Hate Race is a perfect mixture of the internal life of the child and teenager she was with family life, school life and community life. This provides a very sound basis for understanding the racism Beneba Clarke experienced, both external and internalised, and how she responded.

I’m not sure there is really much more I can say that would not either be too detailed, or trite, except to say that, once again, it is so important that a story like this is presented in Beneba Clarke’s own voice.

Victoria: The Queen

Turning, then, to something very different – at least, on its face. Baird’s Victoria has been a huge hit, and I am sure others have written detailed and learned reviews. Any reader of this post will likely know that Victoria tells the whole story of the Queen’s life – indeed, from prior to her conception, until after her death. Readers will also be aware of the importance of Victoria, as a leader and symbol during a critical time for the British Empire. Baird has done a fantastic job of unpicking some of the myths (and apparent inconsistencies) about Victoria and showing us the woman, and the realities of her life.

What is key here again is that Baird has told this story using the voices of those involved (including Victoria herself) to a significant extent. She has plainly pored through thousands of primary source documents – letters, diaries, etc – in order to do so. Indeed, Baird has described the difficulties she had in accessing those documents, and explained that many are lost to history as a result of efforts to “protect” the reputation or image of Victoria after her death.

Despite these difficulties, the source material is far more extensive for someone like Queen Victoria than for many others (such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people), which means Baird was able to do what will never be done for many others.

In other words, although Victoria: The Queen was a very different book from the others I have reviewed above, it serves to highlight the importance of the stories told in (most of) those books, and the essential requirement that those stories be told in the voices of the people involved, to the greatest extent possible.

I also loved:

I am not going to write reviews for any of the other books, but I wanted to point readers to three more in particular.

A Long Time Coming was amazing. In Australia, we do not talk enough about ageing, which is basically why Joosten wrote the book. It’s fantastic. I recommend it to all.

Reckoning is another great story. Szubanski is such a well-loved figure (and even more so after the events of this year) that I don’t think I need to say any more.

This House of Grief is the story of a man who drove his three sons into a dam, and the subsequent trials. Garner is a national treasure, and the thoughtfulness and care she brings to her writing is evident here. Once again, an exploration of a subject which maybe does not get enough airtime in Australia.

And that’s the end of my Australian Women Writers Challenge 2017!

Cross-posted at Hoyden About Town.

Not the broad subject of the article itself: Primary IVF has been operating in Sydney since 2014, has opened from today in Melbourne. It bulk bills and, personally, I think that’s great.

But the tone of the first part of the article, referring to concerns that women might not get the best treatment – with the inference that only those who can pay full freight for private treatment – smells a little off to me.

Now, the article does refer to some evidence which might form the basis for concerns.

And, to be fair, here is some of the media from when it started up in the Emerald City.

The lower priority given to these apparent concerns in the media coverage last year could mean that the evidence from the Sydney clinic does in fact support the concerns.

Or it could mean that different PR approaches are being used by relevant stakeholders. So we are back to my problems with the tone.

The article does also note that Primary IVF has not released its success rates for its Sydney clinic, which means it is difficult to get at the underlying numbers. However, the word “mystery” is used in this regard in the article and this, together with the framing of this section as a whole, comes across as quite negative – despite the fact that Primary IVF has no obligation to release its data and I can think of a number of very good reasons it might choose not to do so.

And similarly: the last part of the article is positive – but it is the last part of the article.

So, reading the article, I was left with the overall impression that the author of the article is not a fan of Primary IVF, or the fact it has opened a new clinic in Melbourne, and I was also left with the impression that the main reason for this is that infertile people might get – wait for it – bulk billed treatment.

Now let me take you back to the AFR article from last year (link again) in which it is stated that the cost of IVF in Australia is considerably higher than elsewhere in the world.

No mention of that in this ABC article.

And that, for me, contributes to the overall impression that someone, somewhere, is maybe suggesting that access to IVF treatment should only be available to those who can pay.

Which seems classist to me.

Cross-posted.

You were my worst.

Or, at least, the end was.

I grew complacent. A decade or so on different continents allowed me to forget your effect. Now you seem to think we can pick up a friendship that was only ever one of us lusting after the other in an ill-timed dance.

And when we got the timing right, discord reigned.

I find I can’t regret you (especially as you smile and my stomach does its tricks).

But you were my worst.

Or, at least, the end was.

In summary, Nile has proposed private member’s bills with various anti-abortion effects, banning full-face coverings, banning X-rated movies and lifting the legal drinking age from 18 to 21. Talk about wowserism and an ideological push.

He’s also proposing an advertising ban on alcohol and gambling – now that, I admit, I could get behind, if the bill is a sensible one. But as the whole agenda appears to be based on ideology, I’m not sure it would be.

Cross-posted at Hoyden About Town.

Every Secret Thing by Marie Munkara
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads blurb

When culture and faith collide . . . nothing is sacred

In the Aboriginal missions of far northern Australia, it was a battle between saving souls and saving traditional culture.

Every Secret Thing is a rough, tough, hilarious portrayal of the Bush Mob and the Mission Mob, and the hapless clergy trying to convert them. In these tales, everyone is fair game.

At once playful and sharp, Marie Munkara’s wonderfully original stories cast a taunting new light on the mission era in Australia.

‘told with biting wit and riotous humour’
Judges’ comments, Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards (2008)

My review

I intended to read this book for the 2015 Australian Women Writers challenge, but as I realised I had read it before, that was not to be.

However, in the spirit of the challenge – and because it is a must-read, and excellent with it – I am including this as an extra review.

Every Secret Thing is written as an account, told by anecdote, of the development of the relationship between the bush mob and the mission mob – the latter have set up the mission somewhere in northern Australia, not too far from a town referred to as Big Joint, with the purpose of Christianising and “civilising” the bush mob.

The various anecdotes tell, humorously, disputes and misunderstandings between the bush mob and the mission mob, and within each, with everyone’s flaws exposed and with the joke generally being on the mission mob – at least at first. The kids confound the visiting Bishop with their logic (why would Adam and Eve eat the apple instead of the snake when the snake would taste better?); Augustine and Methuselah outsmart Brother Michael and make off with various livestock in The Brotherhood; Pwomiga gives deliberate, and hilarious, mistranslations in Wurruwataka.

But as the book goes on, the stories become more and more bittersweet. The dark undercurrent which is evident from the beginning, such as oblique references to child sexual abuse, become stronger and more explicit, such as the story of Tapalinga and Perpetua, two members of the Stolen Generations, in The Garden of Eden. And the ending, which I won’t spoil, is very black indeed.

We have far too few stories about the mission mob/bush mob interaction from the perspective of the bush mob. What I think is particularly valuable about a book like this is that it treats the bush mob’s life pre-mission-mob as the baseline, and the interactions with the intruders, the parts of European culture/industralisation the bush mob accept or reject are explained, and make sense, in that context. For example, if you have always cooked over an open fire, why would you automatically recognise an oven as a device for cooking as opposed to a convenient storage space – or den for newborn puppies? To my mind, this is an effective method of refuting the proposition that Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders are (or were before the coming of the white man) backwards, uncivilised, stupid and lawless. And whatever else, it is refreshing to start from this perspective instead of the perspective which uses the European Australian attitude as the default position.

This was a book I was very pleased to read again, and it is a book I think is a must-read for all Australians.

This is an extra review for the 2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

I have completed the 2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge!

This post is to record how I went compared to my challenge criteria, and to give a very short overview of each book.

First, the books. They were:

(1) MumShirl: an autobiography (Genre: Autobiography)
An account of some of the work that has been done – and a reminder of the work that still needs to be done – to redress the wrongs done to Aboriginal Australians. (Full review here.)

(2) Maxine Beneba Clark, Foreign Soil (Genre: Short Stories)
A wonderful set of short stories which are windows into different worlds. (Full review here.)

(3) Terri Janke, Butterfly Song (Genre: Literary fiction)
I found this an interesting read, reminding me that not everyone approaches things the same way I do (for example, my experience of university was very different from that of the main character). The basic idea of the story is also very intriguing, and the central characters are likeable and sympathetic. However, I found the pace of the book very slow, and some of the descriptions and dialogue felt a bit twee or superficial.

(4) Melissa Lucashenko, Too Flash (Genre: YA)
A solid YA book exploring the many ways in which a young Black girl feels bewteen worlds. (Full review here.)

(5) Maralinga, the Anangu story (Genre: Children/History)
Definitely worth a read in order to learn about and remember a (terrible) part of Australian history which is too often overlooked. (Full review here.)

(6) May O’Brien and Sue Wyatt, The Legend of the Seven Sisters: a traditional Aboriginal story from Western Australia (Genre: Children/traditional story)
When I was a kid, I had a few picture books with traditional Aboriginal stories. I loved them. I think that exposure to traditional Aboriginal stories is important for both Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, so that they know from a young age that their stories are valied, but also for non-Indigenous, so that they also know to value these stories. However, if you are looking for a children’s book with a catchy rhythm, this is not that book.

(7) Kate Forsyth, Bitter Greens (Genre: Speculative Fiction/Fairy Tale)
A truly lovely excursion into the life of a single woman in the Court of the Sun King – and Rapunzel. (Full review here.)

(8) Joan London, Gilgamesh (Genre: Historical Fiction)
This book is an interesting portrayal of how one young woman tries to escape the narrow life she has grown up with in rural Western Australia – first in her fling with an Armenian visitor, then in her journey to Armenia in search of him. It was solid but didn’t really grab me.

(9) Annie Hauxwell, In Her Blood (Genre: Crime)
A bit noir and sterotypical for my liking – but probably more enjoyable if you like noir! (Full review here.)

(10) Eileen Chong, Peony (Genre: Poetry)
A book of poems exploring a range of issues, including family, friendship and love. I didn’t love every poem, but those I did like were sufficient for me to rate the book pretty well. (Full review here.)

Here are my criteria again:

I went for Franklin – reading 10 books and writing at least 6 reviews.

To this, I added the following criteria:

(1) No repeat authors.
(2) No books I have already read (although I am allowed to read books by authors whose other books I have read before).
(3) No repeat genres (sub-genres count as separate genres for this purpose).
(4) At least three substantial reviews.
(5) At least four Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander authors (up from two last time).
(6) At least two immigrant (or first-generation-Australian) authors (up from one last time).
(7) At least two books set in a rural setting (up from one last time).
(8) I aim to finish the challenge by the end of February.

I posted a precis of how I met most of those criteria when I posted my list of books. Here is the updated precis.

First: as you can see, there are 10 books, from different genres, and I posted seven substantive reviews (linked above, also see my series page for a full list of my reviews). In addition, I wrote a brief review on Goodreads for each of the other three books (those reviews are reproduced here).

As for the additional criteria:

(1) There were no repeat authors.
(2) I had not read any of the books before and, in fact, all of the authors on this list were new to me.
(3) No repeat genres.
(4) Seven substantial reviews.
(5) Mum Shirl was Black, of course. Terri Janke has family connections to the Meriam and Wuthathi peoples (Torres Strait and Cape York respectively). The contributors to Maralinga are from the Yalata and Oak Valley Communities. May O’Brien is a Wongatha woman from Western Australia and a member of the Stolen Generations, and it appears Sue Wyatt is also a Wongatha woman. Melissa Lucashenko is of mixed European and Goorie (Aboriginal) heritage.
That’s five books by Indigenous authors.
(6) Eileen Chong, Annie Hauxwell and Maxine Beneba Clark are first generation Australians or have immigrated here. None of the others seem to be. The aim of this criterion is for cultural diversity. As noted in the post listing the books I intended to read, I found it difficult to find authors with non-Anglo names.
(7) Butterfly Song is partly in a rural setting, as is Gilgamesh. Maralinga: The Anangu Story is all about a rural place. The Story of the Seven Sisters is also set in a rural setting.
(8) Done!

I know that the fact that I finished the challenge before the end of January does demonstrate that, in some ways, this is not much of a challenge for me. I don’t add more books because my work is so unpredictable during the year and I don’t want to make commitments I can’t keep. I prefer to keep it short and sharp and bring int he extra criteria.

As in 2012, the biggest aspect of the challenge for me was, and was always going to be, writing reviews. I am proud of the fact that I wrote the seven substantial reviews which have been posted here at Wallaby (and cross-posted at Hoyden About Town), and also, as noted above, wrote a brief review for every book, which you can find at my Goodreads page (also reproduced above).

Once again, in keeping with the purpose of the challenge, I will continue to read books by Australian women writers (well, I would anyway), to continue to seek out books that I would not normally read, and, perhaps, to write reviews.

Substantial reviews will continue to be posted here and at Hoyden About Town, and all reviews will be accessible via my Goodreads page.

Let the challenge continue!

You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

Peony by Eileen Chong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads blurb

An engaging new collection from the author of Burning Rice.

My review

In Peony, Eileen Chong deals with a range of themes, from the nature of family and ancestral roots and traditions, to death, friendship, travel, fear and, of course, love.

Throughout the book, her voice is a consistent one. The poems often seem very personal. These attributes can be positive, and many of the poems made me think deeply or inspired feelings. However, I admit I am more drawn to the range that seems more common in prose – see, for example, my review of Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke. (That might be an unfair comparison, though, as Clarke’s range is just so large.)

I loved many of the poems, and thought the first chapter especially strong in this regard. Particular favourites included “Chinese Singing”, “Musician”, “Tank Man”, “Rice-dumplings”, “In Paris We Never”, “Mid-air Disaster” and “Map-making”. However, one note of Chong’s style comes across as a bit affected: many sentences cross not only lines, but stanzas. Where this works, it’s fine and sometimes great, but in other poems it seems unnecessary and a little as if Chong is saying “hey, look what I can do”. Similarly, the long run of poems all for someone in Chapter III seemed a little as if Chong had been given an assignment to write poems for her friends.

Overall, my enjoyment outweighed the criticism expressed above – and that’s the nice thing about a book of poems, you don’t have to love them all for it to be a good book. This is a book of poetry which is well worth a look.

This is a review for the 2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

Too Flash by Melissa Lucashenko
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads blurb

Bring problems to us before they’re too big to handle, the Princpal advises Zo when she arrives at her new city school. But good advice isn’t much help to Zo. Her Mum’s still a workaholic, and her best friend is still a thousand miles away, back home. Zo soon teams up with Missy. She’s cheeky, smart, a mean soccer player and believes in magic. She comes from a tough family that doesn’t take crap from anyone and it shows. She’s all muscles and attitude like a cattle dog on the warpath. Zo is more laid back – having money makes for a bigger comfort zone, even if you are fat and black. A showdown can’t be far away when Zo and Missy’s worlds collide. It’s not a racial issue – or is it? At school or clubbing or stomping the bush on Kulcha Kamp, the girls are on edgy ground. But in the darkness of night, each of them finds a special magic of her own…

My review

I don’t read much YA these days (I consumed masses of it when I was part of the target audience) but there is something about well-written YA that leaves me feeling very satisfied. This book falls well into that category.

The characters were believable and recognisable, albeit different from me, and in very different situations. As is pretty typical in YA, the main character, Zo, doesn’t quite feel like she belongs anywhere – she’s Aboriginal, with roots in Blacktown and Cape York, but that’s not where she lives; she doesn’t speak much language; she lives alone with her white mother; they are now better off financially than her friends, although they have known want and hardship. At the beginning of the book they move from smalltown Dunstan to Brisbane, leaving Zo feeling even more adrift.

The narrative arc allows Zo to explore her friendships with Sione and Missy, to think deeply about prejudice and to start understanding how to rely on the support of the adults around her.

As noted above, the characters seem real, as does the dialogue – and I loved the scattering of language throughout the book. Zo is given enough room to move and grow and learn, but the events are not overly dramatic and you don’t put the book down thinking “that would never happen”. This is an extremely solid book for readers of any age.

Content warning for fat/weight loss self-talk.

This is a review for the 2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

MumShirl with the assistance of Roberta B. Sykes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Goodreads blurb

Colleen Shirly Perry, better known as ‘Mumshirl’ worked for the Aboriginal Medical Service, recieved an MBE and generally did everything she could for aboriginal people.

My review

It feels quite appropriate to be writing this review on Australia Day/Invasion Day/Survival Day, particularly one on which the debate is not only about the nomenclature of the day and what (if anything) we should be celebrating or commemorating, but also about whether someone such as the husband of the Queen of England should receive the top Australian honour, in circumstances where that honour is itself controversial and where the man is known for making ignorant and bigoted comments, including to Australias First Nations people.

I’ve said in other reviews that books have given me access to a new perspective, a different way of telling the story. This is also true of MumShirl’s autobiography.

It is not the usual kind of autobiography. It is not structured as an overall chronological narrative; it tells very little about the author/subject’s inner feelings and personal circumstances from time to time (what there is of those tends to be a by-the-by and/or an explanation for MumShirl’s understanding or awareness of, or interaction with, certain events, or reasons for her to do what she did). Even very significant aspects of her life (epilepsy, including her lack of education and difficulty getting a job as a result, the death of her first child in labour and the miscarriage of all pregnancies after her second, the giving up of her only living child to her husband’s parents) are mentioned almost in passing. The book is more a series of short pieces about some of the things going on in the Black community over MumShirl’s lifetime and the prejudices and injustices she observed and faced.

I can’t really say much about the book that is better than what MumShirl had to say for herself, so here are some particularly cutting quotes:

I don’t know whether it is the fits that turn employers off epileptics, or just the fear that we will take fits. It is certainly the fear that is harder to live with for epileptics than the actual fits themselves. Perhaps it is also that way for employers. (p 26)

While there is definitely such a thing in prison as doing ‘hard time’, I am not convinced that there is ‘easy’ time. (p 36)

[On people from Black organisations being invited in the 1970s to speak to white organisations:] It turned out that it was costing us a lot to tell these white people that we were not about to start any riots and that all the events which were taking place were in self-defence. After a while, quite a lot of these speakers just wouldn’t go any more, and they were criticised by white people who said we had become ‘unfriendly’.

For many of us, however, it was not just a question of money; it was also a question of time. We could be here in our own community helping out, or out there in the white community not quite sure if our talking was helping anybody at all. (p 54)

And this is a dynamic we continue to see playing out – the majority/powerful group says “EDUCATE US!!!” and when the minority/less powerful group refuses, the response is as MumShirl has described, or worse.

We went away laughing [having just been refused service in a hotel], because it all seemed so silly. We could have had lunch with the Queen, if we wanted, but we couldn’t get a drink in this hotel, and we couldn’t get served in lots of crummy places in Sydney and all around Australia; but we could have had lunch with the Queen.

What a funny way they run their places, these white people, I thought. (p 88)

I think white people forget that Aboriginal people did not have the benefit of schooling and most of us don’t know how to read and write, much less keep account books. It is a long, slow, hard way to learn how to run things and especially to start them up, when we have never had any experience like this before. (at p 92)

MumShirl is talking here about the various successes and failures of Aboriginal-run services and organisations. I have had conversations along these lines with the kind of people who say “oh but we’ve given them so much money and they just waste it!” Well, so do many other start-ups … but the point is that providing funding and better education brings us closer to realistic successful self-determination, which in my view is an important part of justice for Black people in Australia. Also, even in relation to younger Black people who have better access to education, the generations of inequity and injustice have an ongoing impact, as we know that levels of parental education (and, I suspect, community education) have an enormous effect.

This book really is a must-read. It is also a very quick and easy read. MumShirl demonstrates a very high level of empathy, together with serious frustration that the rest of the world does not, for the most part, seem to have the same. This is a book we can all learn from, not only about the events MumShirl describes, but how we can perhaps work together to try to fix the problems we have. Because unfortunately, while there have been some changes for the better in the nearly 35 years since this book was published, there are still too many things which remain the same.

h/t to Mindy at Hoyden About Town for her review of this book for the 2013 Australian Women Writers Challenge.

This is a review for the 2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads blurb

French novelist Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. At the convent, she is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens…

After Margherita’s father steals parsley from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off, unless he and his wife relinquish their precious little girl. Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death. She is at the center of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.

Locked away in a tower, Margherita sings in the hope that someone will hear her. One day, a young man does.

Award-winning author Kate Forsyth braids together the stories of Margherita, Selena, and Charlotte-Rose, the woman who penned Rapunzel as we now know it, to create what is a sumptuous historical novel, an enchanting fairy tale retelling, and a loving tribute to the imagination of one remarkable woman.

A Library Journal Best Book of 2014: Historical Fiction

My review

I enjoyed this book immensely – it is probably more 4.5 stars than 4.

Forsyth explores the life of Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force, known to the Court of the Sun King as Dunamis, meaning strength in Greek, a play on her surname and on her strength of character.

In Bitter Greens, two tales are intertwined: Charlotte-Rose’s own story, told as a contemporaneous account of her life following her exile from the Court to convent and her recollection of certain episodes of her life at Court and as a child, and the story of La Bella Strega and Margherita, told to her by one of the nuns – a story which ultimately inspires Charlotte-Rose in more ways than one.

Charlotte-Rose, as imagined by Forsyth, feels the restrictions of life in the convent enormously, particularly when compared to her life at the Court, where she can wear beautiful clothes, speak when she wants and as she likes, and generally live in comfort and luxury. The novel commences as Charlotte-Rose enters the convent, so we see her moment of psychological shock very clearly. However, life in the convent gives her the opportunity to reflect on life outside, and it becomes more and more clear that life at Court had its own restrictions and frustrations for Charlotte-Rose and those around her. In particular, Charlotte-Rose could not enjoy the slightly less limited freedoms of a married woman: marriage was difficult as she had no dowry (until receiving a pension for abjuring the Huegenot creed), was said not to be a great beauty, was originally a Huegenot and, by the time she had money, was seen as too old.

The two sets of constraints – Court and convent – are then mirrored by the numerous restraints in the story of Margherita and La Bella Strega, the most obvious being Margherita’s confinement in the tower (ie the Rapunzel story).

The craftsmanship of this book is quite incredible. It is a work of beauty, clearly based on strong research. In exploring multiple concepts of restriction and restraint, it also allows its characters and readers to understand the meaning of freedom in various forms – and of responsibility and, to some extent, love.

Favourite scene: for pure absurdity, Charlotte-Rose dressing up as a dancing bear (and apparently, this really happened!). And that’s all I’ll say – if you want to know more, you will have to read the book for yourself.

This is a review for the 2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge. You can see my full list of books here. You can find a full list of my reviews, and other posts relevant to the challenge, here.

Cross-posted.