“A benediction blanketed the yard in all the words that weren’t needed to be said. It was simply, painfully, the finality of time. All along they wanted peace, or to be happy, and they are good things to want, especially for children, but they’d been drawn again and again into the past, where all pain lives. She wondered if everyone was haunted by being a kid. Haunted by the feeling of being unshielded.They weren’t protected from everything, August remembered, not the words hurled by the other locals in town, not the slurred looks, not the school history books and those lies, not everyone around her whose spirits were shattered in a thousand pieces…”
This book is a force. I am supremely impressed with what Tara June Winch was able to accomplish here. Weaving together three different stories that all take place in different timelines and formats, she gives us a picture of Aborigine life in Australia in the past and present. Winch is Wiradjuri. The protagonist, August, comes home after her grandfather Poppy has passed away only to find that a mining company has bought her ancestral lands. On a mission to defend her family’s property she must find Poppy’s life work in order to save their land and history.
I was most impressed with the way the three stories are told and how they are interwoven. My favorite one was Poppy’s writing. He was creating a dictionary of their peoples language, trying to revitalize what was lost. The wisdom that comes from each definition is moving and beautiful. Each one a story on its own.
Not much more I can say here, but I loved it a lot. It was unique in the way it was told and her writing is masterful. I was swept up in this one and it is a book I will recommend to all. #AlwaysReading #TheYield #TaraJuneWinch #Bookstagram #ReadIndigenousAuthors #readaustralian
