Not Quite White in the Head

by Melissa Lucashenko

Miles Franklin-award winner Melissa Lucashenko's searing essays and journalism published together for the first time.

'For thousands of years, global narratives have had, as their explicit task, the expansion of the human heart.'

Melissa Lucashenko is one of our most admired and awarded novelists. She is renowned for writing about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead.

This timely collection of essays and journalism - published together for the first time - spans two turbulent decades. With her trademark wit and wisdom, Lucashenko reflects on being caught in a siege, on the marginalised lives of prisoners and the urban poor, on Blak identity, Australian literature and on meeting her writing idol. Her non-fiction, like her novels, is deeply engaged with politics, activism, culture and social (in)justice.

Not Quite White in the Head offers unprecedented access to one of the nation's greatest writers as she invites us into the conversations that truly matter.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook

256 pages, Hardcover

Published November 4, 2025

About the author

Melissa Lucashenko is an Australian writer of European and Goorie heritage. She received an honours degree in public policy from Griffith University in 1990. In 1997, she published her first novel Steam Pigs. It won the Dobbie Literary Award for Australian women’s fiction and was shortlisted for both the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award and the regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Steam Pigs was followed by the Aurora Prize–winning Killing Darcy, a novel for teenagers, and Hard Yards, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Courier-Mail Book of the Year and the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award. Too Flash, a teenage novel about class and friendship, was released in 2002. Her latest novel is Mullumbimby published by UQP. Melissa lives between Brisbane and the Bundjalung nation.

Reviews

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of essays from an excellent author. I particularly appreciated Lucashenko's take on 'late arrivals', her explanation of how Edenglassie came to be (including a belly laugh induced by an Alexis Wright comment) and her thoughtful, angry and hopeful all at once essay on 'Palm'.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The chapter on Boggo Rd was very confronting - I had no idea that prisoners were treated so horribly. I love listening to Lucashenko, and this collection reads as she speaks - openly, honestly and not without rancor after 200 years of misunderstanding, racism and systemic disadvantage.

[MBC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Graceful and adroit. Though I was not captivated by every single essay, each had some kind of scintillating storytelling that carried it through for me.

[ValTheBookEater]

“Modern Australia was born out of rape culture and has not evolved past it….. The logic of capitalism is to rape our Country into desolation. This is the Australian way.”

“Normally I counter the Dying Race trope in my books by only writing about contemporary Aboriginal life and living blackfellas. This has been a firm rule of mine since I began publishing fiction in 1997 — no killing off Aboriginal characters. We need to be alive on the page if Australia is ever going to imagine us as more than historical artefacts.”

[Steven Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a book about injustice that the Aboriginal people at the hands the white colonist from day
one and things that continued to the present day.
I may be not ticking the politically correctness box here but while I am quite shocked by
some the narratives I feel the book is not productive in holding readers. Too much ramblings IMHO.

[Kirstie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays should be required Australian reading. They are fabulous, sad, revealing, heartwarming, educational or uplifting. They are raw and honest, reflective and rallying.

I highly recommend.

[Jordan Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I have read by an Aboriginal author!

[Liam]

A moving collection from an excellent writer

[Chloe Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book. Eye-opening, thought-provoking and engaging. Loved it.

[Claire Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of this continent’s most important authors - should be compulsory reading

[MelD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful, easy to read essays by the amazing Melissa Lucashenko spanning the last few decades. So much to think about, so well explained. Humour, intelligence, resilience and strength in every page