The Torrent ~ Amanda Gearing

For the May theme of Disasters, I read "The Torrent, Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, January 2011" by Amanda Gearing. 

This is a non fictional account of the terrible flooding disaster, based upon many interviews with survivors of the ordeal. It covers flooding from Spring Bluff right through to Grantham and then the rebuilding efforts.

I was so moved by how each individual did everything they could to help one another. Strangers, neighbours, everyone. It is sad, it is moving and it is gripping. I recommend it to others as a way to learn more about this ordeal. 

Bianca

Time's Long Ruin ~ Stephen Orr

I read this book as a selection from the ‘National Year of Reading’ list – maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but I did, the cover picture is super cute.

In any case, I did not regret my choice: this was the South Australian entry, and it is a beauty. Told in retrospect by the main character Henry Page, still living in his childhood home, (where the floorboards ‘creak in exactly the same spot every time I go to make a cup of tea or take a pee’) it is the story of an outer-suburban community in the 1950’s, tragically to be torn apart by the disappearance of the three Riley children who were Henry’s best friends ‘…my only friends, really’.

It is in fact the story of the real-life Beaumont children who disappeared from Glenelg Beach in the 1960’s, a horrible mystery which remains unsolved; the drawn-out agony of that story, along with the kidnap and murder of 9-year-old Graeme Thorn after his parents won the lottery, are two traumatic events that are burned into my childhood memories.

Stephen Orr writes with deceptive simplicity, but within the easy-read style he builds characters of real depth, imperfect but likable, recognisably Australian. I just wanted to keep turning pages to follow the lives of Henry with his socially-limiting club foot, his loving policeman father and bitter, cruel-tongued mother, and those of their quirky neighbours.

By the time of the children’s disappearance, I found myself totally involved in the life of the Croydon community. The children had been allowed to take the tram to the beach without adult supervision, not at all unusual in Australia’s relatively innocent, crime-free 1950’s and early ‘60’s.

The tension of the mother, her anger at their lateness dissolving into disbelief, fear and guilt, made my neck ache.

The fact that the real-life mystery has never been solved does not detract from the overall quality of the story; the use of a fictional environment adds human context to the bare bones of police and coroner’s reports of one of Australia’s saddest crime mysteries.

Helen

collection of stories told to the author by Aboriginal stockmen and women who capture the life of the droving days when these people travelled huge distances on drives from North Queensland to Victoria and South Australia.

The collection has a foreword by the author, along with maps and several photographs.

The author's novel Unbranded was highly commended in the David Unaipon Award for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders

For more titles by UQP Black Australian Writers visit:

http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/CategoryBookList.aspx/62/Black%20Australian%20Writing

Robyn S.

Listening to Country ~ Ros Mariarty

Ros Moriarty is a white woman married to an Aboriginal man who was from the stolen generation and became a politician and government employee.

Knowing much of this first nation story reading the facts from a family point of view confirms my own research.  Over the course of many visits to her husband's family, Ros was fascinated to discover that the older tribal women of his family had a deep sense of happiness and purpose that transcended the abject material poverty, illness, and increasing violence of their community—a happiness that she feels is related to an essential "warmth of heart" that these women say has gone missing in today's world. 

In May 2006, she had the chance to spend time in the Tanami Desert in north central Australia with 200 Aboriginal women, performing women's Law Ceremonies. Here is the story of that trip and her friendship with these women, as she tells their stories and passes on their wisdom and understanding. 

Offering a privileged window into the spiritual and emotional world of Aboriginal women, this book is a moving story of common human experience, the getting and passing on of wisdom, and the deep friendship and bonds between women. It carries a moving and profound sense of optimism in the fundamental humanity we all share.

Robyn S