Tony Birch, The White Girl.

                                                

- Set in the early sixties mostly in outback Australia, in an Aboriginal reserve and a couple of fictitious towns, this is an Indigenous story filled with a fair bit of drama and tension. But unfortunately the novel is seriously flawed and disappointing.

- While we can't help but sympathise with the awful predicament of the Indigenous people, the narrative too often descends into rank sentimentality and melodrama, the characters becoming caricatures. 

- The focus is on the fraught relationship between the Aborigines and their white masters. They are yet to be constitutionally recognised as full citizens and are under the surveillance and 'protection' of the State. The racism is ugly.

- The police are disgraceful as you would expect - arrogant, petty and brutal. But sprinkled throughout the white community there are real humans, who are always coming to the rescue. 

- There was room here for real tragedy and darkness but Birch never allows it. It's all too nice.