racism

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Review: Bowraville – Dan Box

Bowraville

Dan Box

Penguin Random House Australia

Viking

ISBN: 9780143784395

 

Description:

A true crime story cannot often be believed, at least at the beginning. In Bowraville, all three of the victims were Aboriginal. All three were killed within five months, between 1990 and 1991. The same white man was linked to each, but nobody was convicted.

More than two decades later, homicide detective Gary Jubelin contacted Dan Box, asking him to pursue this serial killing. At that time, few others in the justice system seemed to know – or care – about the murders in Bowraville. Dan spoke to the families of the victims, Colleen Walker-Craig, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux, as well as the lawyers, police officers and even the suspect involved in what had happened. His investigation, as well as the families’ own determined campaigning, forced the authorities to reconsider the killings. This account asks painful questions about what ‘justice’ means and how it is delivered, as well as describing Dan’s own shifting, uncomfortable realisation that he was a reporter who crossed the line.

 

Praise for the Bowraville podcast:

 

‘It is a gripping true crime tale and an essay on racism; a challenge to the lies Australia tells itself about its treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people told through the voices of three Aboriginal families who have been indisputably let down … The podcast has galvanised the public in a way that two decades of print and television reporting on the Bowraville murders have not.’ The Guardian

 

‘A masterful example of crime reporting which forensically details the worst of human nature, inexplicably compounded by the gross negligence of the only people who could provide justice. It’s stirred thousands, including the prime suspect, to re-engage with the case after trusting the journalist to take them to dark places.’ Walkley judges’ comments

 

‘Outstanding.’ Leigh Sales

 

‘Moving, brilliant.’ Annabel Crabb

 

‘If you haven’t listened to Bowraville by Dan Box, then you should.’ David Campbell

 

 

My View:

I wholeheartedly agree with the comments that the Walkey judges made about the reporting of the Bowraville murders.  What more could I add?

 

That I was/am haunted by the stories here – the institutionalised and individual racism like none I have come across in Australia before now, my despair at the cycle of violence and alcoholism that has been normalised in some of the communities spoken of here and I feel the frustration of all those involved in trying to find justice for the two young people and the child victim in Bowraville and I thank Barry Toohey (p.214) for his outstanding explanation of “Chronic collective grief” that makes sense of so much of the pain evidenced in this read.

 

This is an outstanding read. All Australians would benefit from reading this book.

 

 

 

 

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Post Script: Good Girl Bad Girl – Ann Girdharry

Good Girl Bad Girl

Good Girl Bad Girl

Ann Girdharry

Create Space and Kindle Direct

ISBN: 978-0993560217

 

Description:

Mother missing, the discovery of a powerful and corrupt syndicate and dark secrets about her father revealed leaves 28-year old Kal determined to pursue her own investigations, no matter what sinister truths she uncovers, in this intense psychological thriller.

 

Kal is convinced her investigative journalist mother must have been working on a controversial, and top level, news story, it is the only explanation for her sudden and suspicious disappearance. Although mistrustful of the police, Kal allows Detective Inspector Spinks, the officer assigned to her mother’s case, to accompany her when she visits her grandmother to break the news. What they don’t expect is to uncover a file of shocking research cataloguing the deviant activities of seven members of London’s political and business elite. Back on the streets of London, the survival instincts and specialist expertise she learned from her late father, kick into overdrive, as Kal resolves to not only find her mother but continue her work and unveil the conspiracy hidden amongst those in power.

 

About the author: Born and educated in the UK, Ann Girdharry is a trained psychotherapist and has worked as a manager in the not-for-profit sector for many years for agencies working with: carers, vulnerable older people and those with dementia, survivors of abuse, and victims of racism and racial attacks. Today she lives in Montpellier, France with her husband and two children. As well as her passion for writing, Ann enjoys gardening and is a member of her local roller blading club. Ann has previously published a series of short stories called Tales of the Unexpected (2015-2016). Her debut novel, and the first in the Kal Medi series, Good Girl Bad Girl by Ann Girdharry (published by CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing 23rd August 2016 RRP £8.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook) is available to purchase from online retailers including amazon.co.uk and to order from all good bookstores.

 

My View:

Be prepared to suspend your disbelief and then take a seat on a roller coaster ride of mystery, self-discovery and action.

Ann Girdharry’s debut novel is complex; what begins as a narrative surrounding a missing person quickly embraces the issues of paedophilia, bio-technology and ethics, exploitation, racism, organised crime syndicates and poses questions regarding identity, nature v nurture.

Be warned the subject matter can at times be a little gruelling, actually more than a little gruelling… perhaps the author intended to shock us – to wake us from our contended slumber and question some of the bigger picture question regarding first world and third world relationships and responsibilities ?  There is a lot happening in this book and I think the author perhaps would have been better served limiting the number of issues and fleshing out some of the characters, making them more likable.

This is an action packed debut not for the sensitive.

 

 

 

 

 

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Post Script: The Other Side Of The World – Stephanie Bishop

Beautiful prose that subtly explores so many issues – post natal depression, migration, relationships, identity, racism, the meaning of home…

Cover The Other Side of The World

The Other Side of the World

Stephanie Bishop

Hachette Australia

ISBN: 9780733633782

 

Description:

In the tradition of Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work or Maggie O’Farrell’s The Hand That First Held Mine comes a complex, tender and gorgeously written novel of parenthood, love and marriage that is impossible to put down. Cambridge 1963. Charlotte struggles to reconnect with the woman she was before children, and to find the time and energy to paint. Her husband, Henry, cannot face the thought of another English winter. A brochure slipped through the letterbox gives him the answer: ‘Australia brings out the best in you’. Charlotte is too worn out to resist, and before she knows it is travelling to the other side of the world. But on their arrival in Perth, the southern sun shines a harsh light on both Henry and Charlotte and slowly reveals that their new life is not the answer either was hoping for. Charlotte is left wondering if there is anywhere she belongs, and how far she’ll go to find her way home…

 

My View:

Gently written with visually explicit landscapes and relationships put under the microscope this book is a delight to read. I particularly enjoyed reading about the era the migration to Perth Western Australia took place in and the experiences of the migrants Charlotte and Harry and their young family; I was child when we migrated from England to Perth in 1966 and my early memories are of similar experiences – not for me as a child – I think children just except whatever is thrown at them and the notion of migration and living in another country really didn’t impact me directly but it did my mother.

I think the adults were not particularly well prepared for the physical conditions, the cultural changes and the isolation. Like Harry my father had a job to go to, he had a purpose in his day. Accommodation was provided with the job – but a timber framed house with wood stoves for cooking and water heating in the middle of an extremely hot Australian summer do not make life easy for the homemaker, the wife left at home with no transport, no support network and basic cramped living conditions and unbearable heat. We were a family of six (at the time, which became seven) living in a two bedroom house. My parents had no experience of such heat and the sunburn, heat rash, and dehydration that came with it. Mosquitoes and flies… and other little pests can make life unbearable. I think it was a particularly difficult time for my mother. However, we stayed, maybe there were no other real options?

 

Was Charlotte brave? I think so. She had insight and was able to identify the problems in her life but not the causes. She made a difficult decision, actually several very difficult decisions – but still seemed lost and at odds with her identity. To admit that motherhood as she experienced it, was not for her is a huge undertaking – to go against the popular culture and socially determined role expected of a woman in the 1960’s, of a married woman with children, must have been enormously difficult. I think it would probably still be as difficult today to buck societies expectations but maybe the opportunity for depression to be identified and treated would be better but the underlying struggle to rediscover ones identity when in a long term relationship, when responsible for children…that battle is still be waged. Some deal with it better than others.

 

A fantastic novel that gently looks at the intersections of migration, sexism, racism and women’s place in society. This book is guaranteed to make you think and is a delight to read.

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Post Script: What We’ve Lost is Nothing – Rachel Louise Snyder

What We’ve Lost Is Nothing

A Novel

Rachel Louise Snyder

Scribner

Scribner

ISBN: 9781476725178

 

Description:

From an NPR contributor and investigative journalist, a striking debut novel that chronicles the first twenty-four hours after a mass burglary in a suburban Chicago neighborhood and the suspicions, secrets, and prejudices that surface in its wake.

Nestled on the edge of Chicago’s gritty west side, Oak Park is a suburb in flux. To the west, theaters and shops frame posh homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. To the east lies a neighborhood trying desperately to recover from urban decline. Although the community’s Diversity Assurance program has curbed the destructive racial housing practices that migrated from Chicago’s notorious west side over the past decades, cultural and racial integration has been tenuous at best.

In the center of the community sits Ilios Lane, a pristine cul-de-sac dotted with quiet homes that bridge Oak Park’s extremes of wealth and poverty. On the first warm day in April, as Mary Elizabeth McPherson, a lifelong resident of Ilios Lane plays hooky from high school, a series of home invasions rock her neighborhood. A shocking act of violence and another of unexpected compassion in the wake of the burglaries leave the entire community indelibly altered, while the residents of Ilios Lane are thrust into an uneasy alliance and must take stock of the world they believed they lived in—and the world many of them were attempting to create. Snyder builds the story with subtle suspense, leading ultimately to an explosive conclusion.

Incisive and panoramic, What We’ve Lost Is Nothing weaves together an impressive cast of characters, whose lives collide in the wake of disaster. In this powerful fiction debut, Rachel Louise Snyder sheds light on the gray area where idealism confronts reality.

My View:

My View:

What a coincidence that I picked this book up to read the same week as my mother’s house was burgled. I have been mouthing the same sort of platitudes to her as were suggested in this novel…”it could have been worse, no one was hurt, “things” can be replaced.” What I didn’t focus on is what she had lost and could not get back, not yet anyway, the feeling of security, of being safe in her own home, of returning to her home at night without fear… and the dreams she lost…dreams of a future holiday (holiday savings taken, so that will not be happening, for a pensioner it is hard to recover from financial losses).  I suppose I didn’t want to focus on the intangible, the things that I could not begin to fix, but maybe they should have been talked about. The victims of crime in this novel similarly try and avoid talking about their feelings whilst all the time doubts and suspicions niggle at their brain and undermine confidence.

So here I am reading a novel about a community traumatised by a mass of burglaries in one street, and I am sympathetic; feeling all the complex emotions this incident evokes via the conduit that links me emotionally to my mother. I loved the way that the author uses this non violent crime to trigger and exploit a range of reactions in her characters and opens up a discussion on so many contemporary social issues; including the racism and the prejudices that are simmering just below the surface of good intent. It is a very interesting character study and an interesting situational expose that demonstrates that we are all looking for the same things in life; acceptance, friendship, tolerance and independence and a life lived without fear. This is a narrative that will open your eyes. A great read.