- The story of the arrival of the First Fleet has never been told historically from an Indigenous perspective. It can only be imagined. Jane Harrison, in this novelisation of her highly regarded play, has done that brilliantly.
- The Indigenous people have Anglo-Saxon names - Lawrence, Raymond, Miranda, Elizabeth, Howard, Gary, Gwendolyn, Gordon, Adam, Delilah, Joseph, Nathaniel, Lola, Walter, Helen, Albert, Margaret and others. The familiarity is the point - let no othering occur, no strange and unpronounceable names confirming the white colonial prejudice.
- Harrison ensures we warmly relate to her characters and their family and tribal status. She brings alive their deep connection to country, their sensitivity to nature's ways, and the trees, bushes, grasses, fish, animals, birds and insects that are an intimate part of their daily lives.
- 'Aliens' in big boats have suddenly turned up in the bay around which the different tribes live. Their leaders must meet and determine how to react. Seven men, old and young, meet, talk and argue for a day. We're immersed in it - their personalities, biases, strengths and weaknesses. We could be in a pub watching any bunch of opinionated blokes argue it out! One is philosophical, one creative, one mathematical, one cheeky, one a healer, one a hunting expert, one an astronomer familiar with the stars and planets. They wear shirts and trousers, and some wear suits and ties or cravats! It could be any corporate board meeting.
- They remember the last time the aliens visited eighteen summers ago. They didn't stay. Will this much larger group of big boats, eleven in all, full of men, women and unknown animals, visit for a few days also, or stay? ‘…something about the novelty of this situation is discombobulating’ one of them thinks. The concept that these ‘visitors’ could stay forever is foreign to them.
- They find it hard to agree on how to respond. Gordon, one of the Elders, is firm in his belief that they are dangerous. 'They have weapons….Thundersticks. Bang’.
- Their debate as the day proceeds reflects the novel's theatrical origin, its earlier reiteration. The conversations are often stilted, unrealistic and circular. Yet those elements afford it considerable weight.
- A day or so earlier Lawrence, the youngest of the group, had paddled his canoe, unseen, right up to the alien boat. He heard foreign animal sounds (they were pigs, sheep and horses). He pulls a fallen rabbit out of the water. A sailor, smoking a pipe on the deck above him sneezes and the spray lands on Lawrence. He is now feverish and within a few days dies.
- They see the aliens hang a young boy on the boat's deck. The brutality astonishes them. Gordon asks ‘Why can’t you see the truth about these creatures…can’t you see that they are plain primitive?’
- The invaders set foot on shore and begin to construct the township. An infliction called ‘whooping cough’ sweeps through the mob, killing so many men, women and infants. Before long native animals become scarce, and the landscape a desolate eyesore. Nathaniel, one of the leaders, is killed and his head sent off to England. Others are afflicted by the pox which wipes out most of the population.
- ‘We once lived in Paradise’ reflects a survivor. And this amazingly good and gratifying novel ends.
- Vote Yes.
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