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The Great Undoing
How long can you run from a lie, if that lie is what your life is founded on?
In a near future all identity information is encoded in digital language. Nations know where everyone is, all the time. Not everyone agrees with this constant surveillance, and when the system is hijacked and shut down, all global borders are closed. The world is no longer connected, and there is no back-up plan to establish belonging, ownership or trade.
Scarlet Friday, whose job is to correct historical record, is stranded on the wrong side of the globe. Befriended by a stranger, she grabs an old, faded history book and writes her own version over the top—a record of the Great Undoing on the run.
But in deciding what truth to tell Scarlet must face her own history. How do we navigate identity when it is all a lie? She must reckon with her past before she can imagine her future.
In a near future all identity information is encoded in digital language. Nations know where everyone is, all the time. Not everyone agrees with this constant surveillance, and when the system is hijacked and shut down, all global borders are closed. The world is no longer connected, and there is no back-up plan to establish belonging, ownership or trade.
Scarlet Friday, whose job is to correct historical record, is stranded on the wrong side of the globe. Befriended by a stranger, she grabs an old, faded history book and writes her own version over the top—a record of the Great Undoing on the run.
But in deciding what truth to tell Scarlet must face her own history. How do we navigate identity when it is all a lie? She must reckon with her past before she can imagine her future.
7 pages, Audiobook
Published March 1, 2024
34 people are currently reading
934 people want to read
About the author
Sharlene Allsopp
2 books12 followersSharlene Allsopp was born and raised on unceded Bundjalung Country into the Olive mob. She was a 2020–21 fellow in The Wheeler Centre’s Next Chapter program. Her work has been published widely, including in Jacaranda Journal, Portside Review and Aniko Press. Her debut novel, The Great Undoing, is published by Ultimo Press.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
February 8, 2024
Fellow book lovers can I please draw your attention to a recent release that needs to be on your TBR right now. The Great Undoing is the debut novel of Australian Indigenous author Sharlene Allsop and wow this is a seriously good book.
This is dystopian fiction with a decidedly Indigenous bent. The world is largely ruled by a digital surveillance system called Bloodtalk. When the system goes down the world can suddenly no longer function and the global borders are shutting down. Australian woman Scarlet Friday is a Truth-Teller and her job is to correct the historical record. When she is stuck in London as the world collapses she becomes an illegal refugee and alongside a friend with considerable means they flee to the safety of Australia. As she goes on the run she grabs a copy of Ernest Scott's Short History Of Australia and begins amending it as she goes. Correcting the record and recording her history.
Telling you anything more than this will spoil the impact of this work. The writing is brilliant. The chapters are short and punchy. The author uses footnotes and quotes from real Australian authors to excellent effect. The effects of colonisation and its impact on oral storytelling are woven through this book. Just who is allowed to tell stories is also a theme.
I loved how Allsop manages to weave truth telling, a historical record of Indigenous participation in World Wars, what it means to be a refugee, the unpacking of identity and a love story all into one book. Absolutely mesmerising.
Honestly you really need to read this book. If it doesn't make one of the Australian prize lists this year I'll be gobsmacked. Sharlene Allsop is an Australian author to watch.
Massive thanks to @ultimopress for my #gifted copy.
This is dystopian fiction with a decidedly Indigenous bent. The world is largely ruled by a digital surveillance system called Bloodtalk. When the system goes down the world can suddenly no longer function and the global borders are shutting down. Australian woman Scarlet Friday is a Truth-Teller and her job is to correct the historical record. When she is stuck in London as the world collapses she becomes an illegal refugee and alongside a friend with considerable means they flee to the safety of Australia. As she goes on the run she grabs a copy of Ernest Scott's Short History Of Australia and begins amending it as she goes. Correcting the record and recording her history.
Telling you anything more than this will spoil the impact of this work. The writing is brilliant. The chapters are short and punchy. The author uses footnotes and quotes from real Australian authors to excellent effect. The effects of colonisation and its impact on oral storytelling are woven through this book. Just who is allowed to tell stories is also a theme.
I loved how Allsop manages to weave truth telling, a historical record of Indigenous participation in World Wars, what it means to be a refugee, the unpacking of identity and a love story all into one book. Absolutely mesmerising.
Honestly you really need to read this book. If it doesn't make one of the Australian prize lists this year I'll be gobsmacked. Sharlene Allsop is an Australian author to watch.
Massive thanks to @ultimopress for my #gifted copy.
February 1, 2024
Oh, this is probably going to be one of my books of the year, which seems a ridiculous call in the first months of the year. But this is pow, wow, and so much incredible writing, story and character. Best to go in knowing only enough to spark your intrigue.
Scarlet is a Truth-Teller, in a not too distant future, when the digital control system overseeing much of the world and its systems, is hacked and collapses. She has been on a mission to collect truth and correct history, and has started to captured heresy, her-story verses history, by writing over the volume of Ernest Scott's Short History Of Australia.
Delving into colonisation, Aboriginal experiences and truths, this heresy is challenging, a relearning, and a record of oral storytelling. Of a nation story - from white settlement, to Aboriginal participation in World Wars, to the treatment of boat people, and the political scapes. It questions everything, and rewrites a truth.
As the impact of the shutdown is felt, separations occur, and need to scramble back to Country is needed.
So much truth-telling, on the broadest range of truths. So many passages that had me stopping, and re-reading, to let it marinate. So, so good.
"But even after Lance's spectacular rewrite, we forget. Because we want the legend, the myth. We want the lie. We want ugly to be redeemed and to mean something, to tell us stories about winning. That's all myths are - ugly stories prettied up by history writers to try and make ugly mean something..."
"There are many truths, but power decides which truths are told as fact. Australia likes to narrate her story from the present, looking back. She pretends that she has grown up in a cohesive, linear form, like the protagonist of a Victorian realist novel. She pretends that she is a credible omniscient narrator. Worst of all, when her ugly reality is held up in from of her like a mirror, she goes all Miss Havisham on you, gaslighting you until you go along with her particular version of truth."
An examination of truth, myth, colonisers lies and cover-ups. A confronting, impactful read, stopping you in your tracks to remind you to question everything, every history told, every story.
Scarlet is a Truth-Teller, in a not too distant future, when the digital control system overseeing much of the world and its systems, is hacked and collapses. She has been on a mission to collect truth and correct history, and has started to captured heresy, her-story verses history, by writing over the volume of Ernest Scott's Short History Of Australia.
Delving into colonisation, Aboriginal experiences and truths, this heresy is challenging, a relearning, and a record of oral storytelling. Of a nation story - from white settlement, to Aboriginal participation in World Wars, to the treatment of boat people, and the political scapes. It questions everything, and rewrites a truth.
As the impact of the shutdown is felt, separations occur, and need to scramble back to Country is needed.
So much truth-telling, on the broadest range of truths. So many passages that had me stopping, and re-reading, to let it marinate. So, so good.
"But even after Lance's spectacular rewrite, we forget. Because we want the legend, the myth. We want the lie. We want ugly to be redeemed and to mean something, to tell us stories about winning. That's all myths are - ugly stories prettied up by history writers to try and make ugly mean something..."
"There are many truths, but power decides which truths are told as fact. Australia likes to narrate her story from the present, looking back. She pretends that she has grown up in a cohesive, linear form, like the protagonist of a Victorian realist novel. She pretends that she is a credible omniscient narrator. Worst of all, when her ugly reality is held up in from of her like a mirror, she goes all Miss Havisham on you, gaslighting you until you go along with her particular version of truth."
An examination of truth, myth, colonisers lies and cover-ups. A confronting, impactful read, stopping you in your tracks to remind you to question everything, every history told, every story.
February 4, 2024
THE GREAT UNDOING
“The times were never actually simple. We were. The world wasn't shiny and new; we were.”
;.If I was wanting of a book in my younger years that would explain history and stories of the past had been manipulated or have been erased all have faded away into a myth or a legend, The Great Undoing would be the book for me. Written words are not to be forsaken. We don’t have to pick and choose which history we want to know – we can choose all of them at once. We sometimes need to dig deeper to and choose to embrace all of them. “Truth-Telling actively cultivates multiple voiced accounts of the same historical events. the truth is found in the layers, the many voices.”
Apply this to a not so distant future where everyone’s identity is coded – your presence is known at all times: BloodTalk. The system is hacked into with catastrophic consequences. Scarlett Friday is working in London as a Truth-Teller when this occurs, and her journey back, crossing borders illegally to Australia is one she recounts as an Australian refugee, akin to the boat people seeking asylum in a world that doesn't want them.
This book taught me that history that has been recorded is a lived history of someone, and in this case, the history is that of Ernest Scott that our protagonist is up against. It is what they saw or lived and recorded. It may not be the whole truth and that is why we need to hold other truths up to the light. We need to read multiple histories at once, allowing them to overlap, to build the real picture that may have evaded us before. Like colonisation, described by Scarlett as “the act of destroying all voices but one”. It was Scarlett’s role to tell the truth about the ugly stories – myths – that are prettied up by historians to make ugly pretty and interesting. Scarlett wasn’t just a truth teller for Australian history, she was uncovering all the lies and truths about her own life, her relationships and friendships, and generations before her. Her father was an oral truth-teller and his First Nations story is such a powerful one that intertwines with Scarlett’s search for truth.
I could write an essay about this book, I implore you to read it. @ultimopress, I cannot thank you enough for sending me a copy.
“The times were never actually simple. We were. The world wasn't shiny and new; we were.”
;.If I was wanting of a book in my younger years that would explain history and stories of the past had been manipulated or have been erased all have faded away into a myth or a legend, The Great Undoing would be the book for me. Written words are not to be forsaken. We don’t have to pick and choose which history we want to know – we can choose all of them at once. We sometimes need to dig deeper to and choose to embrace all of them. “Truth-Telling actively cultivates multiple voiced accounts of the same historical events. the truth is found in the layers, the many voices.”
Apply this to a not so distant future where everyone’s identity is coded – your presence is known at all times: BloodTalk. The system is hacked into with catastrophic consequences. Scarlett Friday is working in London as a Truth-Teller when this occurs, and her journey back, crossing borders illegally to Australia is one she recounts as an Australian refugee, akin to the boat people seeking asylum in a world that doesn't want them.
This book taught me that history that has been recorded is a lived history of someone, and in this case, the history is that of Ernest Scott that our protagonist is up against. It is what they saw or lived and recorded. It may not be the whole truth and that is why we need to hold other truths up to the light. We need to read multiple histories at once, allowing them to overlap, to build the real picture that may have evaded us before. Like colonisation, described by Scarlett as “the act of destroying all voices but one”. It was Scarlett’s role to tell the truth about the ugly stories – myths – that are prettied up by historians to make ugly pretty and interesting. Scarlett wasn’t just a truth teller for Australian history, she was uncovering all the lies and truths about her own life, her relationships and friendships, and generations before her. Her father was an oral truth-teller and his First Nations story is such a powerful one that intertwines with Scarlett’s search for truth.
I could write an essay about this book, I implore you to read it. @ultimopress, I cannot thank you enough for sending me a copy.
April 1, 2024
I liked it up until the final act and then everything went convoluted and turned to one big mess.
First of all, what on earth is with our country’s authors’ sudden fascination with incest and rape?! Did the protagonist’s conception REALLY have to be a product of gang rape in retribution because her mother’s brothers didn’t like the boy she was seeing at the time? What was the point of that?! It contributes nothing to the main narrative and adds shock value that was completely and utterly unnecessary.
This book is in line with a lot of other contemporary Australian literature that feels the need to insert rape and/or incest in order for the narrative to feel “edgy”. It’s stupid and adds nothing to the plot. Considering this book is set in a post apocalyptic near future, the setting is compelling enough to not have to warrant such an extreme thematic trope.
When it is finally revealed who the saboteur was, it is unclear as to what his motivation was other than he just felt like doing it. It was the worst let down ever, and so underwhelming (perhaps the author decided to make up for that by adding the shock twist about her uncles raping her mum and that’s how she came about?)
The author really needs to work on differentiating character voices, especially when the protagonist’s 12 year old self has dialogue to speak. A 12 year old girl does NOT speak like a woman in her mid 20’s! Likewise, Dylan and David sound no different to Scarlett in terms of dialogue. It’s so poorly done.
As far as the protagonist’s motivation goes, she doesn’t really do much apart from complain, cry and vomit (I am seriously not kidding here!) We could have had the whole story told from David’s point of view and it would have carried much better weight, considering he pretty much does all the rescuing while Scarlett just feels sorry for herself while she cries and vomits. If the author was trying to go for the strong independent female protagonist, then she failed that part miserably.
The advertising for this book is also misleading. Is it really post apocalyptic fiction? Literary fiction? A hybrid of both? It seems that the author is trying to do and say too much and it doesn’t work well together. At all.
The only redeeming quality about this book is the premise itself, which I really, REALLY enjoyed. It was such a pity its execution was far from enjoyable.
Overall, I would not recommend this book to anybody who has experienced sexual trauma in their lives (due to the unnecessary plot twist at the end), and to anybody who is expecting a clean post apocalyptic sci fi as the book is advertised.
First of all, what on earth is with our country’s authors’ sudden fascination with incest and rape?! Did the protagonist’s conception REALLY have to be a product of gang rape in retribution because her mother’s brothers didn’t like the boy she was seeing at the time? What was the point of that?! It contributes nothing to the main narrative and adds shock value that was completely and utterly unnecessary.
This book is in line with a lot of other contemporary Australian literature that feels the need to insert rape and/or incest in order for the narrative to feel “edgy”. It’s stupid and adds nothing to the plot. Considering this book is set in a post apocalyptic near future, the setting is compelling enough to not have to warrant such an extreme thematic trope.
When it is finally revealed who the saboteur was, it is unclear as to what his motivation was other than he just felt like doing it. It was the worst let down ever, and so underwhelming (perhaps the author decided to make up for that by adding the shock twist about her uncles raping her mum and that’s how she came about?)
The author really needs to work on differentiating character voices, especially when the protagonist’s 12 year old self has dialogue to speak. A 12 year old girl does NOT speak like a woman in her mid 20’s! Likewise, Dylan and David sound no different to Scarlett in terms of dialogue. It’s so poorly done.
As far as the protagonist’s motivation goes, she doesn’t really do much apart from complain, cry and vomit (I am seriously not kidding here!) We could have had the whole story told from David’s point of view and it would have carried much better weight, considering he pretty much does all the rescuing while Scarlett just feels sorry for herself while she cries and vomits. If the author was trying to go for the strong independent female protagonist, then she failed that part miserably.
The advertising for this book is also misleading. Is it really post apocalyptic fiction? Literary fiction? A hybrid of both? It seems that the author is trying to do and say too much and it doesn’t work well together. At all.
The only redeeming quality about this book is the premise itself, which I really, REALLY enjoyed. It was such a pity its execution was far from enjoyable.
Overall, I would not recommend this book to anybody who has experienced sexual trauma in their lives (due to the unnecessary plot twist at the end), and to anybody who is expecting a clean post apocalyptic sci fi as the book is advertised.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 10, 2024
This is a really great first novel. Such an interesting plot, really loved the vision of Australia with Truth-Telling and that part of the future. Also so accurate that Bloodtalk would be an Australian invention. However, I didn't care about the relationships between Scarlet and Dylan or David at all. Honeslty think the story could have done without the love story and had more time building a believable relationship with David. Overall, really glad I read this and really excited to see what Allsopp writes next!
January 20, 2026
‘How long can you run from a lie, if that lie is what your life is founded on.’
April 7, 2024
I am a bit confused by this book. I am doing a unit at university about Indigenous history and truth telling so I thought this would be a great novel to read alongside that. It had a lot of good parts, an interesting idea with some twists but overall didn’t quite hit the mark for me. I found it was a bit too literary, nothing is said directly, it all has to be interpreted and inferred which is a personal dislike. It wasn’t exciting at all, which is what I expected from a dystopian sci-fi book, but rather a lot of internal dialogue with a few brief exciting moments. Some things I didn’t even understand and I found myself trying to explain the book to my friends and getting a bit lost. Maybe it was too many ideas all put into one story when they could’ve been separated into different stories. Maybe I’m just not clever enough to “get” this book?
February 20, 2024
This is the type of book that I will need to return to at some point and read slowly. It's a text that deserves to be savoured with many layers and treasures to discover. But I'm impatient and raced to the end. It makes it no less important but it means that their may be things that I will discover upon a reread.
In a not too distant future, Scarlet Friday is undertaking Truth Telling in London. Life has been fundamentally altered by BloodTalk, a type of implant that both has all your information and allows you to access information. Life's general admin no longer exists, passports, bank details and other various indicators of identity are stored via BloodTalk. Scarlet has escaped Australia and a messy situation she doesn't want to confront but her life in London is about to rapidly change and in horrific and traumatic ways.
During her journey Scarlet reflects on her own past but also the past of Australia. She unpicks and recontextualises the history that had been skewed by the coloniser. The identity of both herself and the country she was born in constantly under evaluation and studied. Author Sharlene Allsopp weaves in other stories, poetry, songs and narratives to highlight the narrative that her protagonist is experiencing.
The chapters are short and compelling, often moving back and forwards through time. The world Allsopp has built is fascinating, I definitely came out wanting more of it, having endless questions but a lot of that is how well she has crafted her protagonist Scarlet, someone struggling internally with the questions she asks of the world.
I think this is the kind of read that will just improve upon revisiting.
In a not too distant future, Scarlet Friday is undertaking Truth Telling in London. Life has been fundamentally altered by BloodTalk, a type of implant that both has all your information and allows you to access information. Life's general admin no longer exists, passports, bank details and other various indicators of identity are stored via BloodTalk. Scarlet has escaped Australia and a messy situation she doesn't want to confront but her life in London is about to rapidly change and in horrific and traumatic ways.
During her journey Scarlet reflects on her own past but also the past of Australia. She unpicks and recontextualises the history that had been skewed by the coloniser. The identity of both herself and the country she was born in constantly under evaluation and studied. Author Sharlene Allsopp weaves in other stories, poetry, songs and narratives to highlight the narrative that her protagonist is experiencing.
The chapters are short and compelling, often moving back and forwards through time. The world Allsopp has built is fascinating, I definitely came out wanting more of it, having endless questions but a lot of that is how well she has crafted her protagonist Scarlet, someone struggling internally with the questions she asks of the world.
I think this is the kind of read that will just improve upon revisiting.
September 20, 2024
Wow. Just wow. 4.5 stars
This book tells the story of the Undoing - when, in the future, all the technology that binds the world falls apart. This is time of BloodTalk, when we are all connected to the network through blood and nobody does anything analog, except for a few countries who refused to be connected. A virus takes the system down and everything falls apart. Scarlett is an Australian marooned in England and, as a citizen of the country that created BloodTalk, she is no longer welcome outside of her country, but this is a bigger question of Country and belonging. She manages to return home, but where is home? Where does she belong? What is her Country?
I alternated reading and listening to this and ended up finding the audiobook to be the best for me. Initally, I struggled with the story as it jumps from Now to Before Now, to Then and all the way back to her childhood and it can be a bit disjointed at first, But it all comes together and the questions of belonging and country and who gets to own the "truth", and what IS truth after all, these questions are all huge and really make you think.
This is a new Australian author from Bundjalung Country who is definitely one to watch. There is so much to digest from this dystopian and yet oddly contemporary story.
This book tells the story of the Undoing - when, in the future, all the technology that binds the world falls apart. This is time of BloodTalk, when we are all connected to the network through blood and nobody does anything analog, except for a few countries who refused to be connected. A virus takes the system down and everything falls apart. Scarlett is an Australian marooned in England and, as a citizen of the country that created BloodTalk, she is no longer welcome outside of her country, but this is a bigger question of Country and belonging. She manages to return home, but where is home? Where does she belong? What is her Country?
I alternated reading and listening to this and ended up finding the audiobook to be the best for me. Initally, I struggled with the story as it jumps from Now to Before Now, to Then and all the way back to her childhood and it can be a bit disjointed at first, But it all comes together and the questions of belonging and country and who gets to own the "truth", and what IS truth after all, these questions are all huge and really make you think.
This is a new Australian author from Bundjalung Country who is definitely one to watch. There is so much to digest from this dystopian and yet oddly contemporary story.
December 4, 2024
Wow!
Full thoughts here - https://youtu.be/sUK7JnBFXqw
Full thoughts here - https://youtu.be/sUK7JnBFXqw
March 24, 2024
At 20% in I decided I’ve supported Australian literature enough. Let’s not turn this into a torture.
April 24, 2024
I would have loved to like this book more but ...
On the positive side, the interweaving of indigenous thinking and culture with the White History of Australia is so interesting and thought provoking. I felt that I needed to re-read the whole thing to appreciate the ideas presented.
On the other, I found the plotting was frustrating and sketchy and left me with so many questions, and so many plot holes. And unfortunately, the questions related to some of the important points in the novel, like the relationship between David and Scarlet, and the Undoing itself was a huge black hole.
Still, I enjoyed the reference to Bundjalung country as that was where I grew up. And Scarlet was an interesting character, as was David.
Still, it's good to see traditional storytelling memes being overturned and reworked in an indigenous narrative.
On the positive side, the interweaving of indigenous thinking and culture with the White History of Australia is so interesting and thought provoking. I felt that I needed to re-read the whole thing to appreciate the ideas presented.
On the other, I found the plotting was frustrating and sketchy and left me with so many questions, and so many plot holes. And unfortunately, the questions related to some of the important points in the novel, like the relationship between David and Scarlet, and the Undoing itself was a huge black hole.
Still, I enjoyed the reference to Bundjalung country as that was where I grew up. And Scarlet was an interesting character, as was David.
Still, it's good to see traditional storytelling memes being overturned and reworked in an indigenous narrative.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 16, 2024
A wild ride, some really poignant and beautifully posed passages, but mixed with some confusing plotting, large pieces of information that were never really explained and an ending that lacked punch and frankly the whole thing was rather confusing. I’m not really confident what happened….
April 3, 2024
What an excellent book!! So much chucked into this book. The core of this book is a modern conversation of Australian First Nations culture and colonialism. Whilst this is the main theme, this is intricately woven into an interesting story that includes trans-national professional experience, romance, higher education and, oh the end of 'modern society', as we know it in the twenty-first century. Whilst there are definitely some loose ends and some parts that make you take a leap of faith with the author (the question of is that really plausible might flitter around the edge of your brain) this story draws you along, and helps to tackle a subject that can sometimes feels quite difficult to approach.
Let's replace To Kill A Mockingbird in our high school curriculum with this great Australian novel. Well done!
Listened as audiobook
Let's replace To Kill A Mockingbird in our high school curriculum with this great Australian novel. Well done!
Listened as audiobook
May 23, 2024
this was great! it took me a little while to grasp the lay out style and the time jumps but once i was in it i was having a great time, i loved her relationship with dylan even though parts of it felt like i was reading a dystopian fan fic lol (because he's a famous musician i guess). i enjoyed reading the connection to country and learnt a lot about the indigenous land that i was fortunate enough to grew up on. also the 'undoing' is very much a real concept and felt not that far from the realm of possibility eep
March 17, 2024
Thematically, this book is excellent - raw, visceral, thought-provoking and healing all at once. I unfortunately couldn't give it 5 stars though, as the choice to jump between timelines, while perhaps necessary, often prevented tension from building and lowered my investment in some of the bigger plot points.
April 15, 2024
Lyrical and captivating, Allsopp’s debut was refreshing. I love Australian literature and this one you really feel the country, such an atmospheric story. It wasn’t what I expected given the blurb, it ended up being so much more about finding yourself, embracing all the moments, so much more than the blurb could contain. The quote on the final page knocked me around as well.
May 3, 2024
Wow. This book. I loved the premise, the intertextuality (my reading has grown again), the cover, the footnotes. There were some niggles with parts of it (Dylan mostly) but overall I loved it.
April 17, 2025
wow wow wow wow wow. loved this. exquisite language in parts. interesting structure / pacing. eerie / uncomfortably realistic commentary. very different + unique.
January 3, 2026
Enjoyed it ,but not sure if i liked it??!!
May 23, 2024
A smart dystopian story packed with loads to ponder, and if you're au fait with Australian literature there's lots of little Easter eggs to unwrap too.
June 27, 2025
Had to update to 5-stars. Haven’t stopped thinking about it since I finished and never read a book quite like it. Absolutely extraordinary ❤️
October 6, 2024
Some dictionary entries required expansion, others required contraction. For example, we call Uluṟu by its Yankunytjatjara name, as that is the earliest name given for the rock and its surrounds, but the fullness of Uluṟu is not captured by that one word. However, a kookaburra can truthfully be called many things—kookaburra by English speakers, gahgun by Bundjalung speakers, gugubarra by Wiradjuri speakers, kaa-kaa in Noongar. There is no lie in calling a kookaburra by any of those names. They are all true at exactly the same time.
We become a kaleidoscope of those we love. It’s a way to hold on to them.
Beautiful, lyrical, thought-provoking storytelling in the wholeness of the word: indigenous stories, mixed heritage stories, time travel, dystopia, utopia, nature, love, adventure. Perfect.
NOW It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thriving empire in possession of a stolen fortune must be in want of an historian. After all, only the winners write history. The civilisers come with their mighty pens and contain the uncivilised within their covers. They are story stealers. The post-truth era didn’t begin with the Internet or smartphones. It began in the very beginning.
And only the water and the sand stretch out their arms to gather me onto their soft bed, welcoming me home. Lying in their arms, I am overwhelmed by salt and earth and eucalyptus. This gentle ending belies the trauma of traversing continents and oceans.
My bones feel as old as the continent, its plates beginning to shift.
The goal was to deliver a discourse that allowed space for complexity, in the spirit of the Yolngu theory of confluence—Ganma.* But who decides the truth? Who gets the final say? Is there any form of overwriting that is safe from oppressive motives? How can truth ever be extricated from power?
In reality the policies had one purpose—to disable a monopoly on voice. History has always privileged the ‘one voice’ narrative. Truth-Telling actively cultivates multiple-voiced accounts of the same historical events. The truth is found in the layers, the many voices.
Trees are a tantalising time machine. We know that they hold the memory of the past. That they stand in one place for centuries and listen deeply. Dadirri: Inner, deep listening, and quiet, still awareness.*
‘They were no better than animals. It was no different to kill them, than to kill an animal when they stopped respecting your authority’—Reverend Bill Robinson. So, sure, it is true that there was no official legislation that designated Indigenous people as flora and fauna. But that fact alone does not deliver meaningful truth. When you are not allocated the same rights and privileges, the same justice, the same freedoms as non-Aboriginal people—whether alienated by the existence of laws or the absence of them—where might you believe you are located? When the rhetoric of the day often reflected the ‘good’ Reverend, what might you reasonably assume? To say that Aboriginal people weren’t classified as flora and fauna is the worst sort of semantics. The more meaningful response is not to argue a point of law, but to empathise and mourn with people who found no refuge in legal words. A language constructed to dispossess them, not protect them. Perhaps flora and fauna might have been a safer place to seek protection.*
helped me to set aside my blinding rage and refuse the West’s false polarities.
The federation of the United States of America was born of revolutionary warfare […] but there were no such impulsions in Australia. The country had never known war. It was safe from outside aggression […] It had never endured rebellion.*
intellectually understood the nature of light and Claude’s pursuit to capture it. But in that moment, standing before those textured brushstrokes, no barrier between me and Monet except time, I did not think—I felt. And sure, maybe it’s a cliché, but I felt an immersion in history, in beauty, in healing. I felt alive. By deserting realism, and blurring the harsh boundaries between our edges, somehow Monet made the world more real. A gentler foregrounding of beauty over subject. Years later, I stood almost alone in a circular white room in the Orangerie, Paris, surrounded by his Water Lilies on a scale that was truly breathtaking. This was a gift to his country, designed to be a refuge from the pain and wounds of World War One, a space for healing. A place where the lines between devastation and beauty weren���t distinct, just for a moment—perhaps a long enough moment to reframe our vision and remember beauty where it was thought there was only brokenness. Light burst out of dark, and I sank onto a bench and cried wretchedly. I felt the first emptying of the loss I had left behind. The unbearable weight of lightness.
Of course, the grief came. The reason I ran to the park—the journey that led me to David—was that, for just a short time as I read and connected with his story, his service record, his truth, I had forgotten. Forgotten that we did not share blood. His story did not belong to me. He wasn’t my ancestor. He was another soldier who nobody remembered fondly, who nobody spoke about—a sacrifice assigned to silence. First I saw the colour, the beauty, the form. Then I saw the subject, the truth. Ah, so Monet.
‘What’s your favourite time travel movie?’ Get Back. ‘The Beatles’ documentary?’ I laughed. ‘That’s not a time travel movie.’ He shuffles back, changing his position so he can look at my face. His eyes, rimmed with smudged black eyeliner, are deadly serious. It absolutely is. He gently slides me off him and walks over to his piano, playing the familiar opening to ‘Let It Be’. Paul strolls in one morning, sits down at the piano, and starts fooling around with a melody. We recognise it immediately, but he doesn’t. He’s the creator, and he doesn’t yet know the words. Almost everyone alive on Earth could sing them, but he can’t. Time travel. Right now, I’m playing the exact same notes, touching the same keys. I can reproduce its exact time signature. In fact, it’s the time signature that ensures its reproducibility, delivers its ability to be timeless. Simultaneously in time and out of time. Without time, music cannot take its form. And it can force you back in time without asking permission.
Truth-Telling is the defiant, deliberate act of speaking back to the oppressor. When facts are uncontested, truth appears self-evident. All oppressors rely on the unexamined, the undeclared. Silence suits them perfectly well. How do I speak truth when I am a lie? I am not so ignorant as to believe that there is Truth, and there is Lie, and that everything falls into those polarities.
During my lost months in Europe, I spent a lot of time in bodies of water. I could dive down into their depths, the thick sounds of the deep dulling the grief.
Beneath the water, me and my history were featherlight. The water held my shape, supported the weight. Absorbed the hurt and released me. I could dive deep, kicking, wrestling, and then I could submit to stillness and slowly float to the surface. The water pressure unapologetically restored me to breath, as long as I surrendered to its power.
When a religion like Christianity teaches that the fixed and final state of humanity will be the most extreme, segregated existence ever imagined, its members will naturally feel justified to support that model in the present. If I believe that a loving God designed, and approves, of an eternity where millions of human beings are deprived of relationship and tortured, while a small minority live abundantly, why wouldn’t I passionately support that same model right now?*
Djanangmum, but we lived an hour or so from their hometown on a large piece of Arakwal land near Cavanbah. I was raised with my feet in crystal-clear Bundjalung water, and my nose in rock pools. We roamed the coastline from Goanna Headland right up to northern Minyungbal land.
Beloved is both a noun and an adjective. As an adjective, it means dearly loved. As a noun, it means to be the dearly loved. But as a verb, it is almost obsolete. To belove. To be love. To love dearly—an action, an act.
You think you don’t belong in England and worry you might not belong here. Those worries are real and not real, true and not true. You are my daughter. You belong here because you’re mine. But unlike me, you belong in many places. Your destiny is more than as a custodian for this Country. You have custodianship over many places and truths. You think you don’t belong anywhere because you actually belong everywhere. You feel not enough here or there, because you’re needed everywhere. Reaching out, his hands pull me into his chest, and he whispers, soft as the trees: You’ve tried to make yourself small. But you’re not a star. You’re a galaxy. This place isn’t enough for you. Maybe one day, when one season ends and another begins, you’ll land here, and it’ll be enough. But until then, darlin’, your belonging is in many places.
We become a kaleidoscope of those we love. It’s a way to hold on to them.
Beautiful, lyrical, thought-provoking storytelling in the wholeness of the word: indigenous stories, mixed heritage stories, time travel, dystopia, utopia, nature, love, adventure. Perfect.
NOW It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thriving empire in possession of a stolen fortune must be in want of an historian. After all, only the winners write history. The civilisers come with their mighty pens and contain the uncivilised within their covers. They are story stealers. The post-truth era didn’t begin with the Internet or smartphones. It began in the very beginning.
And only the water and the sand stretch out their arms to gather me onto their soft bed, welcoming me home. Lying in their arms, I am overwhelmed by salt and earth and eucalyptus. This gentle ending belies the trauma of traversing continents and oceans.
My bones feel as old as the continent, its plates beginning to shift.
The goal was to deliver a discourse that allowed space for complexity, in the spirit of the Yolngu theory of confluence—Ganma.* But who decides the truth? Who gets the final say? Is there any form of overwriting that is safe from oppressive motives? How can truth ever be extricated from power?
In reality the policies had one purpose—to disable a monopoly on voice. History has always privileged the ‘one voice’ narrative. Truth-Telling actively cultivates multiple-voiced accounts of the same historical events. The truth is found in the layers, the many voices.
Trees are a tantalising time machine. We know that they hold the memory of the past. That they stand in one place for centuries and listen deeply. Dadirri: Inner, deep listening, and quiet, still awareness.*
‘They were no better than animals. It was no different to kill them, than to kill an animal when they stopped respecting your authority’—Reverend Bill Robinson. So, sure, it is true that there was no official legislation that designated Indigenous people as flora and fauna. But that fact alone does not deliver meaningful truth. When you are not allocated the same rights and privileges, the same justice, the same freedoms as non-Aboriginal people—whether alienated by the existence of laws or the absence of them—where might you believe you are located? When the rhetoric of the day often reflected the ‘good’ Reverend, what might you reasonably assume? To say that Aboriginal people weren’t classified as flora and fauna is the worst sort of semantics. The more meaningful response is not to argue a point of law, but to empathise and mourn with people who found no refuge in legal words. A language constructed to dispossess them, not protect them. Perhaps flora and fauna might have been a safer place to seek protection.*
helped me to set aside my blinding rage and refuse the West’s false polarities.
The federation of the United States of America was born of revolutionary warfare […] but there were no such impulsions in Australia. The country had never known war. It was safe from outside aggression […] It had never endured rebellion.*
intellectually understood the nature of light and Claude’s pursuit to capture it. But in that moment, standing before those textured brushstrokes, no barrier between me and Monet except time, I did not think—I felt. And sure, maybe it’s a cliché, but I felt an immersion in history, in beauty, in healing. I felt alive. By deserting realism, and blurring the harsh boundaries between our edges, somehow Monet made the world more real. A gentler foregrounding of beauty over subject. Years later, I stood almost alone in a circular white room in the Orangerie, Paris, surrounded by his Water Lilies on a scale that was truly breathtaking. This was a gift to his country, designed to be a refuge from the pain and wounds of World War One, a space for healing. A place where the lines between devastation and beauty weren���t distinct, just for a moment—perhaps a long enough moment to reframe our vision and remember beauty where it was thought there was only brokenness. Light burst out of dark, and I sank onto a bench and cried wretchedly. I felt the first emptying of the loss I had left behind. The unbearable weight of lightness.
Of course, the grief came. The reason I ran to the park—the journey that led me to David—was that, for just a short time as I read and connected with his story, his service record, his truth, I had forgotten. Forgotten that we did not share blood. His story did not belong to me. He wasn’t my ancestor. He was another soldier who nobody remembered fondly, who nobody spoke about—a sacrifice assigned to silence. First I saw the colour, the beauty, the form. Then I saw the subject, the truth. Ah, so Monet.
‘What’s your favourite time travel movie?’ Get Back. ‘The Beatles’ documentary?’ I laughed. ‘That’s not a time travel movie.’ He shuffles back, changing his position so he can look at my face. His eyes, rimmed with smudged black eyeliner, are deadly serious. It absolutely is. He gently slides me off him and walks over to his piano, playing the familiar opening to ‘Let It Be’. Paul strolls in one morning, sits down at the piano, and starts fooling around with a melody. We recognise it immediately, but he doesn’t. He’s the creator, and he doesn’t yet know the words. Almost everyone alive on Earth could sing them, but he can’t. Time travel. Right now, I’m playing the exact same notes, touching the same keys. I can reproduce its exact time signature. In fact, it’s the time signature that ensures its reproducibility, delivers its ability to be timeless. Simultaneously in time and out of time. Without time, music cannot take its form. And it can force you back in time without asking permission.
Truth-Telling is the defiant, deliberate act of speaking back to the oppressor. When facts are uncontested, truth appears self-evident. All oppressors rely on the unexamined, the undeclared. Silence suits them perfectly well. How do I speak truth when I am a lie? I am not so ignorant as to believe that there is Truth, and there is Lie, and that everything falls into those polarities.
During my lost months in Europe, I spent a lot of time in bodies of water. I could dive down into their depths, the thick sounds of the deep dulling the grief.
Beneath the water, me and my history were featherlight. The water held my shape, supported the weight. Absorbed the hurt and released me. I could dive deep, kicking, wrestling, and then I could submit to stillness and slowly float to the surface. The water pressure unapologetically restored me to breath, as long as I surrendered to its power.
When a religion like Christianity teaches that the fixed and final state of humanity will be the most extreme, segregated existence ever imagined, its members will naturally feel justified to support that model in the present. If I believe that a loving God designed, and approves, of an eternity where millions of human beings are deprived of relationship and tortured, while a small minority live abundantly, why wouldn’t I passionately support that same model right now?*
Djanangmum, but we lived an hour or so from their hometown on a large piece of Arakwal land near Cavanbah. I was raised with my feet in crystal-clear Bundjalung water, and my nose in rock pools. We roamed the coastline from Goanna Headland right up to northern Minyungbal land.
Beloved is both a noun and an adjective. As an adjective, it means dearly loved. As a noun, it means to be the dearly loved. But as a verb, it is almost obsolete. To belove. To be love. To love dearly—an action, an act.
You think you don’t belong in England and worry you might not belong here. Those worries are real and not real, true and not true. You are my daughter. You belong here because you’re mine. But unlike me, you belong in many places. Your destiny is more than as a custodian for this Country. You have custodianship over many places and truths. You think you don’t belong anywhere because you actually belong everywhere. You feel not enough here or there, because you’re needed everywhere. Reaching out, his hands pull me into his chest, and he whispers, soft as the trees: You’ve tried to make yourself small. But you’re not a star. You’re a galaxy. This place isn’t enough for you. Maybe one day, when one season ends and another begins, you’ll land here, and it’ll be enough. But until then, darlin’, your belonging is in many places.
May 15, 2024
Easy 5 stars. A priority re-read. What a beautiful blend of speculative-dystopian and indigenous theming and questions of truth. I particularly loved the christian imagery weaved throughout and at times discussed (accurately).
May 4, 2024
I really enjoyed aspects of this book. The combination of post-apocalyptic plot and reconciliation to First Nations history and knowledge is intriguing. It’s one thing to value and appreciate that culture and knowledge, but there’s no ‘going back’ to a pure traditional way of life/ownership of the land - except, what if there’s an event that trashes technology and communications globally? Could we look at traditional knowledge and customs fresh then? This is a very ambitious book, but despite being chock full of different ideas and experimental techniques, it doesn’t quite realise that ambition. It’s a bit ‘first novel’y in that regard - but much to like. Scarlet didn’t really come alive for me as a character, but the imagination of the novel kept me turning the pages.
April 17, 2024
I loved this book.
I loved the melodic beat of the story telling.
I loved that the narration had the harmony of a fable or a fairy tale.
It was intelligent, thoughtful and thought provoking.
Creative and informative.
I loved the melodic beat of the story telling.
I loved that the narration had the harmony of a fable or a fairy tale.
It was intelligent, thoughtful and thought provoking.
Creative and informative.
March 1, 2024
I seldom find fiction so illuminating. An amazing sci-fi dystopia told through a Bundjalung lens. A mirror tale reflecting colonial power, truth, identity and lies. No spoilers just read it.
March 7, 2024
A truly exceptional debut. Im quite speechless at how good this novel was.
March 10, 2024
Very good.
March 26, 2024
4.5 stars. One of the best books of my year, this book took me to new places, and times. Extraordinary.
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