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• Gripping

  This novel is thoroughly gripping from the outset and is full of dramatic incidents incidents that keep the reader hooked and guessing what will happen next.the characters are well drawn and,though the salter clan is dysfunctional and prone to heated argument,there is a deep sense of humour and realism to the interactions and dialogue.the novel deals with serious issues:child abuse,alcoholism,crime,domestic violence and the many cruelties and dispossession suffered by indigenous people in Australia,but the author manages to balance this with a sense of hope and buoyancy that heartens the reader,who is also made aware of the deep sense of engagement with the environment and the animal kingdom that is clearly evident in indigenous culture. Hugely enjoyable and well worth reading.

• Racism and poverty in Australia

  Great read. Lots of Aussie slang, which was a bit difficult for this reader from USA; but enjoyed the plot and descriptions of life for the Aborigines and their descendants. Seems like the same thing we did to our Native Americans here. 🙁

• An eye opener on aboriginal families

  This is the first book ive read recreating the lives of aboriginal families in australia and so a real eye opener for me. The author is a gifted writer and able to make her charcters come to life and fit their stories into what we already know from the news about the terrible tragedy of the children forcibly removed from their families as part of government policy to 'integrate' the original population into the colonial European wider society. Some striking parallels with black african slavery in the United States.

• Rich and Challenging

  Melissa Lucashenko said that her sixth novel was "gritty, violent and funny". She is absolutely right! This book is set in rural Queensland in a household of twenty-first century indigenous Australians. Kerry Slater is coming home after six years away in the city. She hates returning but she feels compelled to pay her respects to the dying patriarch. The book presents a gloriously, tragically chaotic family struggling with inter-generational trauma, addictions, long-term unemployment and domestic violence as well as more destructive secrets. What makes the story so compelling is that Lucashenko is a proud Bunjaling woman who both loves and despairs. The dialogue is frequently wonderfully witty, enriched with the Bunjaling language, allowing non-indigenous readers the experience of being prevented from a full understanding. There are great discussions between indigenous people and a range of judgemental authority figures who lose the debates because of their irony bypasses. There is a touch of magic realism about the conversations between Kerry and her spirit animals, the crows. Finally, there are lyrical descriptions of the land, the Mother and the spiritual connection between these damaged people and their ancient culture. Of course, every Australian should read the book but so should readers in countries with First Nations people all over the world. My only warning is that the copious swearing is hilarious, ribald and very rude, so perhaps some potential readers may be offended - or laugh out loud.

• Hard and true

  The novel captures the lives of an Australian Aboriginal family in the early 21st century and gives something of the ancestry of the kin of that family. As such the novel gives us a view of the damage British colonization did to a complex and successful culture who had lived in a symbiosis with this continent over many thousands of years. Awful things were done to the indigenous of Australia by the colonisers - from genocide to stealing their children and effectively imprisoning them in mission settlements of one or other Christian religion. The family in the centre of this story carry the scars of that history yet also have dignity that comes from their Aboriginal ancestors and the remnants of the language and stories of the metaphors of the relationship of the people and their land. This novel is superbly well written and the particular story unfolds in the way plots do in pleasing novels with all the complex and serendipity and metaphors and humour we expect from this art form. Yet, from time to time one has to have a break from the family and some of the inter-relationships because it is so punishingly hard - even brutal. Shame visits upon me the reader a second generation European Australian principally of English heritage. What my English and Irish stock did in the past and still many feel that way today. But I came back to the novel. The story is good and the writing terrific and, after all - though it is from rape and sometimes genuine inter racial love - the family in the novel have European heritage as well as Aboriginal. The family are after all cousins with some of their white persecutors in the nearby towns. We are, after all in this together, in this business of rehabilitation.

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