Tara June Winch, The Yield

- Unfortunately I was underwhelmed by this highly lauded novel. There’s nothing terribly original about it and it lacks real power. I was expecting a lot more.

- A few weeks ago it won the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Book of the Year, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the People's Choice Award. 

- There are three voices and three narratives that structure the novel: the Christian missionary Ferdinand Greenleaf's letter to Dr George Cross in Britain in 1915, outlining his travails over many years; the recently deceased grandfather Albert Gondiwindi's Dictionary of the Wiradjuri language and his detailed summary of indigenous traditions and practices; and his granddaughter August's story of her return from London for Albert's burial and her re-connecting with her extended family. 

- The three voices have very distinct characteristics. Greenleaf's letter, broken up into chapters throughout the book, is powerful and very informative. It provides continuing commentary on colonial attitudes and indigenous suppression, appalling neglect by governments, the vicious and murderous flogging, raping and shooting of aborigines by whites, the non-response by police and the courts, and the way young children were constantly stolen from their parents and sent to white boarding school and homes. 

- Disappointingly, August's judgement of his views at the end is unduly negative: '...the Reverend had been wrong too...He was bad in a long pattern of bad. I reckon he just thought he was doing right.' She ignores his abandoning of his Lutheran beliefs in the end because of their racism, and his commitment over decades to honouring and arguing for the rights of the indigenous communities. 

- Winch acknowledges her debt to Bruce Pascoe’s highly influential Dark Emu. Albert Gondiwindi’s dictionary describes in detail the indigenous farming and fishing traditions outlined by Pascoe.

- A minor part of the narrative is the recently approved tin mine on the Aboriginal land. There’s always mining. It's a cliche. And there's Native Title.

- The young girl’s’ grandparents, Elsie and Albert, were loving and well respected elders. They stepped in and brought up August and her older sister Jedda after their parents had succumbed to drugs and alcohol. 

- Winch's depiction of August's large extended family and their interactions and respect for each other is, unfortunately, rather too nice. The narrative is far too sentimental. There is one exception - a beautifully written account of a brolga intruding and 'dancing' at the funeral service, prompts August to recall ‘Uncle Jimmy Corvette who liked to climb into their beds when nobody seemed to notice’. So finally, half way through, comes a gut punch. Jedda suddenly disappeared at a young age and has never been found. We later learn what happened.

- I couldn't help comparing Winch's rather tepid portrayal of the family with Melissa Lucashenko's brilliant rendering of the vigorous, angry and always fighting Salter family in her classic novel Too Much Lip. In comparison, Yield is a bit too thin.