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Trouble: On Trial in Central Australia
What is going on in the often troubled town of Alice Springs? Trouble goes into the ordered environment of the courtroom to lay out in detail some of the dark disorder in the town's recent history. Men kill their wives, kill one another in seeming senseless acts of revenge, families feud, women join the violence, children watch and learn from the sidelines. Journalist Kieran Finnane follows the stories through witness accounts, recognizing the horror and tragedy of violent events, and the guilt or innocence of perpetrators. She draws on a 25-year practice of journalism in Alice Springs, as well as experience of its everyday life, to add fine grain to the portrait of a town and region being painfully remade.
296 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2016
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About the author
Kieran Finnane
4 booksKieran Finnane is a journalist and arts writer. She has lived in Alice Springs since 1987. A founding journalist of the Alice Springs News, she also contributes arts writing and journalism to national publications. Her book, Trouble: On Trial in Central Australia, was published by UQP in 2016.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 10, 2022
'Trouble: On Trial in Central Australia' describes the ugliest, most problematic aspects of the region through the prism of court hearings. Each chapter is devoted to a different case, but most cases have violence and alcohol abuse in common. The book is peppered with brief explanations of the intricacies of Aboriginal culture (jealousing, payback, kumanjayi etc) and meticulously documents the details of each trial. Kieran Finnane is an Alice Springs journalist, who writes for the Alice Springs News Online, and writes on a variety of topics ranging from court reporting, the arts scene in Alice, and sundry local issues.
I bought this book not long after I moved to Alice Springs, about eight months ago. At the time, I was on a bit of a non-fiction spree; I'd read (and adored) Helen Garner's 'This House of Grief' and Johann Hari's 'Chasing the Scream', so when I spotted this in the local bookstore, I figured I could use my desire to read more non-fiction to learn more about my new home. Unfortunately, I found this book a really difficult slog that I persisted with because of the occasional insight it offered. I refer to these sorts of books as "eat your vegetables" books - you keep reading because you suspect they're good for you in some way, but there's no joy in the process.
I could see how someone who'd never lived in Central Australia might find this book fascinating. However I could trace my interest in the book waning the longer I'd lived here. The vignettes Finnane presents (groups of countryman yarning and drinking in the dry Todd River, for example) stopped being a curiosity in a book and began to be something I saw with my own eyes every other day. Little tidbits about indigenous culture and language, like skin names and the kinship system, and bereavement rituals like replacing the name of the recently deceased with a substitute name like 'Kumanjayi' or 'Kwementyaye', while still fascinating, are no longer a novelty to me. As I didn't particularly enjoy Finnane's style of writing, these little tidbits were the offering I valued most in this book.
I'm a Publishing and Communications student, and in an Editing Masterclass, my lecturer (a former journalist and experienced editor) told us that journalists are often the most difficult writers to work with. Years of journalistic writing has become ingrained habit and is a difficult style to shake; journalists are used to rapidly approaching deadlines and are thus unaccustomed to the long-haul process of writing a full-length book. Obviously, I had no hand in editing this book, and have no way of knowing what Finnane's process is or where her specific talents lie, but this book felt like a book-length news article, a style which becomes tiresome over 289 pages. The few offerings of commentary and analysis felt trite and contrived. 'Trouble' is a work of non-fiction, so it almost seems unfair that I didn't enjoy the writing style because it felt so detached and matter-of-fact, but I have read and loved other works of non-fiction that included passion in their prose, and used the facts to tell a gripping story.
If you've never been to Central Australia and have an interest in court reporting and/or the problems of Indigenous society, you might find this an interesting read. The tension between Australian law and indigenous traditional law is indeed fascinating, but if you read for the joy of the prose itself, you'll likely struggle through this one.
I bought this book not long after I moved to Alice Springs, about eight months ago. At the time, I was on a bit of a non-fiction spree; I'd read (and adored) Helen Garner's 'This House of Grief' and Johann Hari's 'Chasing the Scream', so when I spotted this in the local bookstore, I figured I could use my desire to read more non-fiction to learn more about my new home. Unfortunately, I found this book a really difficult slog that I persisted with because of the occasional insight it offered. I refer to these sorts of books as "eat your vegetables" books - you keep reading because you suspect they're good for you in some way, but there's no joy in the process.
I could see how someone who'd never lived in Central Australia might find this book fascinating. However I could trace my interest in the book waning the longer I'd lived here. The vignettes Finnane presents (groups of countryman yarning and drinking in the dry Todd River, for example) stopped being a curiosity in a book and began to be something I saw with my own eyes every other day. Little tidbits about indigenous culture and language, like skin names and the kinship system, and bereavement rituals like replacing the name of the recently deceased with a substitute name like 'Kumanjayi' or 'Kwementyaye', while still fascinating, are no longer a novelty to me. As I didn't particularly enjoy Finnane's style of writing, these little tidbits were the offering I valued most in this book.
I'm a Publishing and Communications student, and in an Editing Masterclass, my lecturer (a former journalist and experienced editor) told us that journalists are often the most difficult writers to work with. Years of journalistic writing has become ingrained habit and is a difficult style to shake; journalists are used to rapidly approaching deadlines and are thus unaccustomed to the long-haul process of writing a full-length book. Obviously, I had no hand in editing this book, and have no way of knowing what Finnane's process is or where her specific talents lie, but this book felt like a book-length news article, a style which becomes tiresome over 289 pages. The few offerings of commentary and analysis felt trite and contrived. 'Trouble' is a work of non-fiction, so it almost seems unfair that I didn't enjoy the writing style because it felt so detached and matter-of-fact, but I have read and loved other works of non-fiction that included passion in their prose, and used the facts to tell a gripping story.
If you've never been to Central Australia and have an interest in court reporting and/or the problems of Indigenous society, you might find this an interesting read. The tension between Australian law and indigenous traditional law is indeed fascinating, but if you read for the joy of the prose itself, you'll likely struggle through this one.
July 2, 2016
[Picked up in Darwin and added to the 'Cramming Australia, 2016' pile. The formula: when you visit a place, buy a load of contemporary fiction and non-fiction. The aim: to take the pulse and come back a little wiser. Arguably.]
A bleak, eye-opening and unsentimental picture of violence and alcoholism in Alice Springs and NT, based on an extended period of court reporting by the writer. Think Alice as microcosm, perhaps.
It's a troubling reminder of the stats and prevalence of domestic violence and alcoholism in that story (at one point a judge describes a defendant's drinking routines as 'astonishing' - it is indeed).
While it's evidently focussed on a criminal subset, it's a pretty useful insight too into wider Aboriginal culture today for the Oz-watcher (I'm thinking of things like jealousing, payback, feuds, family groups, inter-nation tensions, drinking camps, etc). I must confess I'd assumed that speaking English was a given. I'd read about the 'Intervention' and 'every child is sacred', but this was still shocking.
Some of these lives are desperately bleak and the difference in worlds and opportunities reminds me of places like late Apartheid South Africa (though not to suggest anyone wants that to be the case), India, Brazil...
The epilogue talks of initiatives that showed signs of progress (point of sale interventions, rehab before court, etc), which - surprise surprise - got scrapped by the right. Two steps forward and three steps back, ad infinitum.
Christ, Australia. Where do you start?
A bleak, eye-opening and unsentimental picture of violence and alcoholism in Alice Springs and NT, based on an extended period of court reporting by the writer. Think Alice as microcosm, perhaps.
It's a troubling reminder of the stats and prevalence of domestic violence and alcoholism in that story (at one point a judge describes a defendant's drinking routines as 'astonishing' - it is indeed).
While it's evidently focussed on a criminal subset, it's a pretty useful insight too into wider Aboriginal culture today for the Oz-watcher (I'm thinking of things like jealousing, payback, feuds, family groups, inter-nation tensions, drinking camps, etc). I must confess I'd assumed that speaking English was a given. I'd read about the 'Intervention' and 'every child is sacred', but this was still shocking.
Some of these lives are desperately bleak and the difference in worlds and opportunities reminds me of places like late Apartheid South Africa (though not to suggest anyone wants that to be the case), India, Brazil...
The epilogue talks of initiatives that showed signs of progress (point of sale interventions, rehab before court, etc), which - surprise surprise - got scrapped by the right. Two steps forward and three steps back, ad infinitum.
Christ, Australia. Where do you start?
January 10, 2020
Alcohol and Race - Applying Which Law and How
Kieran Finnane takes a Helen Garner-like forensic and movingly nuanced examination stance to the intricacies of assault cases involving death or serious injury - in Central Australia - where substance or alcohol abuse and issues touching on different linguistic groups/ethnic and/or family allegiances/kinship and of Australian law and political interference all play their tangled parts. Kieran’s appreciation for all the influences and aspects and her compassion for all those caught up as perpetrators or victims or as their families watching on is itself worthy of much respect.
Kieran Finnane takes a Helen Garner-like forensic and movingly nuanced examination stance to the intricacies of assault cases involving death or serious injury - in Central Australia - where substance or alcohol abuse and issues touching on different linguistic groups/ethnic and/or family allegiances/kinship and of Australian law and political interference all play their tangled parts. Kieran’s appreciation for all the influences and aspects and her compassion for all those caught up as perpetrators or victims or as their families watching on is itself worthy of much respect.
June 6, 2022
DNF - which is such a shame because this is a subject I’m very interested in and am actually studying at the moment. But this is so DRY. There is no emotion in the writing. I pushed through to just over 50% before I realised life is too short to put up with bad writing. So unfortunate, because this subject deserves so much more passion and empathy.
November 7, 2022
I wanted this book to be something it’s not- a Garner-esque retelling, a Hari investigation or a historical explainer focussing on policy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer any of these angles and is instead a retelling of events with little analysis or novel insight. Perhaps more interesting and relevant for people who have never lived in the NT.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews