And now for something completely different.
The Secret River
Kate Grenville
I’m going to qualify my inclusion of this book by reiterating these posts are about 10 books that have had a significant impact on me. And this one absolutely did. It is an incredible book. The writing is top shelf. The story is compelling. The characters have depth and substance. They are human and monstrous. It is a very hard book to read, and it hurts to think about. This book opened my eyes to the depth of the injustices done to Australia’s Aboriginal people by white settlers and the awful, unhealed wound of the atrocities white settlers visited upon them (read this & you’ll understand why it can’t heal. Yet, anyway.)
But.
In posting about this book, I acknowledge that the very fact it took a book by a non-Aboriginal woman to bring me to this place of understanding and awareness is, in itself, a perfect example of how the problem – the roots of which are so eloquently and awfully laid bare in this book – continues to exist and perpetuate in Australia today. Some voices are not given the opportunity and the platform and the amplification that other voices seem to so easily find.
I used to think this was a book every non-Indigeous Australian should read. And to a certain extent, I still do. This is a brilliant book. By all means, if I’ve intrigued you with this post, read it. But what you should do is start with one, or all, of these.
Leife Shallcross 