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Belonging: A Place in the World
Dr Louis Gabriel arrives in legendary Gundagai, passionate about the new medicine and pioneering surgery. He is fired with hope and ambition, but is new, black and overqualified. Will he be top, or bottom, of the social ‘pile’? Will he ever belong? Based on the eminent photographer and medico, we follow his struggles, his loves and dilemmas, climaxing with Federation and the murderous Boer War.
Unknown Binding
First published February 23, 2012
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About the author
Garry Robert McDougall
16 books6 followersTrouble! From a sports-crazed childhood, and his first scribblings incinerated by a irate headmaster. High school success meant they couldn't refuse his university entry, where he soon led the Anti-War movement, initiated sit-ins and subsequent arrests. By burning his 'draft-card' and opposing military conscription, he soon landed in gaol.
Finding travel more fun, on his overland trip from Singapore to Amsterdam, he met Yasser Arafat, lived with gypsies, trekked Nepal, took a life-changing trip in Pakistan, and fell in love with France.
After two years pretending to be a Maths teacher, he studied the Art and co-created the Official Bicentennial Great North Walk, a long-distance walking track to Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. They refused him an Honour and threw him off the Board when he objected to a cigarette company sponsorship.
After publication of Great North Walk and NSW Heritage Walks, he started a successful business, Great Australian Walks. This fifteen-year stint involved numerous media events, interviews, and TV Travel shows. Exhausted by 2000, he returned to art, and began writing poetry, short stories and novels.
After a stint of Adult Ed, Artist-in-Residence and lecturer at the University of Western Sydney, he completed his first novel, 'Belonging'. A second novel, 'Starts With C,' was followed up with a third, 'Knowing Simone', and a fourth, 'Blacksmith and Canon'. The fifth,' A Blacksmith’s Life' has been followed by 'Sea Voices', with a seventh, 'Renaissance', in the making.
Two inspired travel books Damn! and Border and Soul, plus ten other books on the Spanish, French and Portuguese Caminos de Santiago, make him the pilgrimage path’s most prolific author.
Garry co-initiated the Official Bicentennial Great North Walk, was President of Balmain Institute for seven years, and on the executive of the South Coast Writers Centre. A member of DiVerse (ekphrasis poets) and the Write-On novelist's group, he won the Peter Cowan Short Story Prize with Patting the Dog, exhibits paintings and photographs, was Feature Poet at the Sydney Writers Festival, and won the Art-In-Unusual-Place Grant in 2022.
Practising “Anarchic Rhyme” is all art forms, he masquerades as Hugo Hugo, a 510 yr. old who bemoans his birth as too late for the best of the Renaissance, though passionate for every age of human folly.
Every so often, he wonders his own follies.
Finding travel more fun, on his overland trip from Singapore to Amsterdam, he met Yasser Arafat, lived with gypsies, trekked Nepal, took a life-changing trip in Pakistan, and fell in love with France.
After two years pretending to be a Maths teacher, he studied the Art and co-created the Official Bicentennial Great North Walk, a long-distance walking track to Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. They refused him an Honour and threw him off the Board when he objected to a cigarette company sponsorship.
After publication of Great North Walk and NSW Heritage Walks, he started a successful business, Great Australian Walks. This fifteen-year stint involved numerous media events, interviews, and TV Travel shows. Exhausted by 2000, he returned to art, and began writing poetry, short stories and novels.
After a stint of Adult Ed, Artist-in-Residence and lecturer at the University of Western Sydney, he completed his first novel, 'Belonging'. A second novel, 'Starts With C,' was followed up with a third, 'Knowing Simone', and a fourth, 'Blacksmith and Canon'. The fifth,' A Blacksmith’s Life' has been followed by 'Sea Voices', with a seventh, 'Renaissance', in the making.
Two inspired travel books Damn! and Border and Soul, plus ten other books on the Spanish, French and Portuguese Caminos de Santiago, make him the pilgrimage path’s most prolific author.
Garry co-initiated the Official Bicentennial Great North Walk, was President of Balmain Institute for seven years, and on the executive of the South Coast Writers Centre. A member of DiVerse (ekphrasis poets) and the Write-On novelist's group, he won the Peter Cowan Short Story Prize with Patting the Dog, exhibits paintings and photographs, was Feature Poet at the Sydney Writers Festival, and won the Art-In-Unusual-Place Grant in 2022.
Practising “Anarchic Rhyme” is all art forms, he masquerades as Hugo Hugo, a 510 yr. old who bemoans his birth as too late for the best of the Renaissance, though passionate for every age of human folly.
Every so often, he wonders his own follies.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 10, 2013
A doctor arrives in the remote Australian town of Gundagai. Passionate about the new medicine and Dr Lister’s pioneering surgery, he is fired with hope and determination. But he is new, black and overqualified- in the wrong place at the wrong time- so how long will he last?
Based on the life of eminent photographer and medico, Dr Louis Gabriel, this is the engaging tale of legendary Gundagai, and the driving ambitions of its medicos. What hope has Louis of romance, married life and family? Can he and his camera overcome envious medicos and the machinations of Gundagai’s colourful characters? How will he cope with the religious animosities, the economic hardships and a rising ‘White Australia’ policy?
The story climaxes in 1901, with the coming of Federation, the Jimmy Blacksmith terror, the Sydney Plague and the murderous Boer War.
Available at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view... Only $5.99.
Reader's Comments:
... already up to page 80 - can't put it down! Lynne Sandberg, Sydney
…the text is very clear and readable. Dr Gabriel's story is actually a very good idea... and I think you execute it quite well. The medical scenes in particular are very vivid...
Zack Alexopoulos, Tutor, Sydney Uni
I was quite enthralled with the story…I got so I could hardly stop reading... the types of illnesses, diseases, misadventures, are relived vividly…. The photos too....were quite illuminating .... I succumbed to the National Library website and went through the whole 900 images! Judy Newton, Sydney
…a very sure accomplished style with great feel for detail and idiom.’ There is so much in it which is fresh and new. Milorad Pavlovic, Editor, Writer
…the novel lovingly but unromantically recreates a fascinating slice of Australia’s past...It is a great tale, and I would say material for a great miniseries of say, the ABC
Independent review, WordPress
I have just finished your book and am writing to say how much I enjoyed it. It was such an interesting story, and your creative use of the facts ...were terrific. Also the way outside events impinged on the Gundagai residents was so interesting. You evoked the resonances of the era beautifully. I enjoyed it, and will be recommending it to my friends. Trish Walters, Sydney
Based on the life of eminent photographer and medico, Dr Louis Gabriel, this is the engaging tale of legendary Gundagai, and the driving ambitions of its medicos. What hope has Louis of romance, married life and family? Can he and his camera overcome envious medicos and the machinations of Gundagai’s colourful characters? How will he cope with the religious animosities, the economic hardships and a rising ‘White Australia’ policy?
The story climaxes in 1901, with the coming of Federation, the Jimmy Blacksmith terror, the Sydney Plague and the murderous Boer War.
Available at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view... Only $5.99.
Reader's Comments:
... already up to page 80 - can't put it down! Lynne Sandberg, Sydney
…the text is very clear and readable. Dr Gabriel's story is actually a very good idea... and I think you execute it quite well. The medical scenes in particular are very vivid...
Zack Alexopoulos, Tutor, Sydney Uni
I was quite enthralled with the story…I got so I could hardly stop reading... the types of illnesses, diseases, misadventures, are relived vividly…. The photos too....were quite illuminating .... I succumbed to the National Library website and went through the whole 900 images! Judy Newton, Sydney
…a very sure accomplished style with great feel for detail and idiom.’ There is so much in it which is fresh and new. Milorad Pavlovic, Editor, Writer
…the novel lovingly but unromantically recreates a fascinating slice of Australia’s past...It is a great tale, and I would say material for a great miniseries of say, the ABC
Independent review, WordPress
I have just finished your book and am writing to say how much I enjoyed it. It was such an interesting story, and your creative use of the facts ...were terrific. Also the way outside events impinged on the Gundagai residents was so interesting. You evoked the resonances of the era beautifully. I enjoyed it, and will be recommending it to my friends. Trish Walters, Sydney
Displaying 1 of 1 review