M.L.Stedman, A Far-Flung Life

 

- Sometimes the truth is unbearable, and best kept secret. Stedman’s proposition is contentious but explored in depth in this her second novel after her hugely successful first, The Light Between Oceans.  

- The MacBride family live on a large and remote sheep station in Western Australia. The father and his oldest son die in a tragic truck accident in 1958. The youngest son, Matt, who was also in the truck, is severely injured and rendered mentally unstable for a number of years. 

- The daughter Rose, the middle child, is bright and confident and helps their mother run the property. Unfortunately she gets pregnant and gives birth to a boy. She's deeply ashamed and refuses to reveal the identity of the father. She commits suicide by jumping into an abandoned mine shaft with the baby, who survives. The family and friends interpret it as an accident. 

- We're taken forward to 1969. Matt has fully recovered, and the baby, named Andy, is now ten. He’s curious about his parents. Why did his mother commit suicide and who is his father? 

- As the story develops we're introduced to a variety of fascinating characters, each with their own stories and secrets. One of them is Bonnie, a mining engineer who is exploring areas on the station that may contain minerals currently in demand. The mining boom that will dominate Australia's economy for decades to come has started. 

- Bonnie and Matt are attracted to each other, and eventually they get engaged. 

- We're taken decades ahead and discover how all the characters have dealt with their challenges, successes, disappointments and tragedies. We're drowned in sentimentality but lots of interesting detail. 

Evelyn Araluen, The Rot

 

- I thoroughly enjoyed Evelyn Araluen’s previous collection of poetry, Dropbear, which won the 2022 Stellar Prize.

- The Rot is similarly academic, philosophical, political and highly literary. 

- But unlike in Dropbear, too many of The Rot’s poems are overly condensed and deliberately obscure, making it difficult to comprehend essential meanings. They are virtually closed to the reader and therefore fail to inform or persuade, much less please. 

- The formal structures of most of the poems are rather meaningless and pretentious. One intensely annoying feature of many of them is the frequent blackout of names or words as if some political authority had ordered it. That may be Araluen's point but it's still very off-putting. 

- However I did appreciate Araluen’s frequent condemnation of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. She clearly registers her anger and fury in many of the poems, and reveals how much it is affecting her not just emotionally but mentally as well. 

- Most reviewers have heaped praise on the book. And of course it won this year’s Victorian Premier's Literary Award and the Prize for Indigenous Writing. 

- I was at first reluctant to post this review. All reviewers so far, mostly literature academics, highly commend it. But I studied Australian poetry at university so I don't feel I'm ignorant.  

Amy Remeikis, Where It All Went Wrong: The Case Against John Howard

 

- This new book by respected journalist Amy Remeikis is superb on all levels. I can't praise it highly enough. 

- It's a detailed, clearly written, and compelling analysis of Howard’s abysmal and deadening conservatism which Australia is still suffering from today. Because Rudd and Gillard were not up to the task of reversing it. And neither is Albanese. 

- And importantly the book is highly economically literate. Remeikis is not captured by the usual cliches even mouthed by excellent journalists like Bernard Keane who wrote this in Crikey yesterday: If only Albanese had some of Howard’s more positive traits, like fiscal discipline and a respect for budget surpluses, or a willingness to embrace tax reform. This is so ignorant. Continued budget surpluses mean governments aren't spending enough on essential services. And Howard's 'tax reforms' were focused on benefiting the more affluent and the rich. The working class were hammered. 'Do we have a super-fast train? Free higher education? An actual universal health system? Dental? A strong social safety net or affordable housing?'

- The back cover blurb says it all: 'Of our modern crises, most are caused by his policies. Housing crisis ? Guilty. Work insecurity? Guilty. Giving away gas? Guilty. Climate denial? Guilty. Rise of the far right? Guilty. America's lapdog in foreign relations? Guilty. Jingoistic tracksuits and flag-wrapping? Guilty and convicted.' Far from being 'great economic managers', the Howard government bought boomer votes with franking credits and negative gearing, sacrificing the generations now inheriting the nation. They sold our their children and grandchildren for mining billionaires, investment properties and annual cruises.'

- As Amy says: 'If you want to know who fucked millennials and gen Z, the answer is easy: Howard. Howard marketised vocational education, turned universities into businesses, undermined universal health care by funnelling money to the private sector, and gutted public school funding by doing much the same thing.

- If you want to be thoroughly enlightened about our current political and economic problems and challenges, read this book.