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Thicker Than Water: History, Secrets and Guilt: A Memoir
In 1837 Angus McMillan left the Scottish Highlands for the other side of the world. Cutting paths through the alien harshness of the Australian frontier, McMillan became a pioneer to be forever mythologised in the statues and landmarks that bore his name. He was also Cal Flyn’s great-great-great-uncle. Inspired by this glimmer of an ancestral greatness, Flyn followed in his footsteps to Australia, where her investigations forced her to confront dark and horrifying family secrets.
She discovered that McMillan and his peers were responsible for a series of assaults on indigenous peoples so ferocious that the sites would ever after be synonymous with bloodshed: Skull Creek, Boney Point, Slaughterhouse Gully. McMillan too had a new name: the Butcher of Gippsland.
Driven to piece together his story and confront her own history, Flyn looks for answers: How could a man lauded for his generosity and integrity commit such terrible acts? How could a man who had witnessed the horror of Highlanders cleared from their lands then massacre and ‘clear’ indigenous people on the other side of the world? How can whole societies come to be overlooked and forgotten? Should today's generation atone for their ancestors' sins?
Blending memoir, history and travel, Thicker Than Water evokes the startlingly beautiful wilderness of the Highlands, the desolate bush of Victoria and the reverberations on one from the other. A tale of blood and bloodlines, it is a powerful, personal journey into dark family history, intergenerational grief and the inherited guilt that we all carry with us.
She discovered that McMillan and his peers were responsible for a series of assaults on indigenous peoples so ferocious that the sites would ever after be synonymous with bloodshed: Skull Creek, Boney Point, Slaughterhouse Gully. McMillan too had a new name: the Butcher of Gippsland.
Driven to piece together his story and confront her own history, Flyn looks for answers: How could a man lauded for his generosity and integrity commit such terrible acts? How could a man who had witnessed the horror of Highlanders cleared from their lands then massacre and ‘clear’ indigenous people on the other side of the world? How can whole societies come to be overlooked and forgotten? Should today's generation atone for their ancestors' sins?
Blending memoir, history and travel, Thicker Than Water evokes the startlingly beautiful wilderness of the Highlands, the desolate bush of Victoria and the reverberations on one from the other. A tale of blood and bloodlines, it is a powerful, personal journey into dark family history, intergenerational grief and the inherited guilt that we all carry with us.
366 pages, Paperback
Published February 23, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
October 1, 2021
I chose the book because earlier this year I read Cal Flyn’s Islands of Abandonment, which so far has been my favourite non-fiction read of 2021. In this earlier book, published in 2016, the author travelled to the Australian state of Victoria to follow the trail of her 2x great-uncle, Angus McMillan. At one time McMillan was regarded as an Australian hero, an early pioneer who forged new trails and located new land for settlement. He was the sort of man who became the subject of memorials after his death, and the maternal side of the author’s family were proud of their link to such a remarkable character. In the last half-century though, McMillan’s reputation has taken a battering, as he was revealed as the organiser/leader of several massacres of Aboriginal people.
McMillan was born on the Isle of Skye and became a tacksman* on the Isle of Barra before emigrating, so the author’s starts her journey on these islands. On Barra she explores the deserted village of Balnabodach, something I’ve done myself, although she made an erroneous assumption when she said the nearby modern houses were all for people who had come to the island for peace and quiet. Despite knowing all the locations she visited in the islands, I found this section of the book a little slow.
The Australia section naturally forms the bulk of the text, and involves both a physical and personal journey for the author, who had access to McMillan’s own journals. They reveal a man with the typical hopes and fears of all of us. Flyn asks a question that’s been asked in many other circumstances, which is how a normal person like McMillan came to participate in bloodthirsty killings. The book also addresses the concepts of collective and inherited guilt. Flyn seems to have an acute sense of the latter.
Collective guilt, the idea that an entire group should be judged by the characteristics of the worst individuals within it, has always seemed to me the classic definition of racism. Since we didn’t choose our ancestors, neither, logically, should people feel guilt over the deeds of said antecedents. I would agree with the author though, that in practice these ideas do have considerable traction. We can go all the way back to the Book of Exodus and find the quote about how the sins of the father will be visited on his descendants to the third or fourth generation. In Flyn’s case, the question is made more complex because, as the author identifies, many Scots tend to “assume a certain martyr complex” in terms of our country’s historic relationship with England, and she herself admits to getting emotional when discussing the more tragic events of Scotland’s history with English people. In following McMillan in Australia, she had to switch from being the descendant of the victim, to being the descendant of the oppressor.
I have mixed feelings about all this. I’m a keen history reader and acknowledge that every society has been shaped by its history. Personally though I’m more emotionally detached from the past than the author seems to be. We should never cover up what happened before, but neither should we obsess over historical wounds. That generally does more harm than good.
Most reviewers have rated the book more highly than I. I found it a book with many merits, but I didn’t entirely relate to the author’s very personal journey.
*One of the principal tenants of a large landowner.
McMillan was born on the Isle of Skye and became a tacksman* on the Isle of Barra before emigrating, so the author’s starts her journey on these islands. On Barra she explores the deserted village of Balnabodach, something I’ve done myself, although she made an erroneous assumption when she said the nearby modern houses were all for people who had come to the island for peace and quiet. Despite knowing all the locations she visited in the islands, I found this section of the book a little slow.
The Australia section naturally forms the bulk of the text, and involves both a physical and personal journey for the author, who had access to McMillan’s own journals. They reveal a man with the typical hopes and fears of all of us. Flyn asks a question that’s been asked in many other circumstances, which is how a normal person like McMillan came to participate in bloodthirsty killings. The book also addresses the concepts of collective and inherited guilt. Flyn seems to have an acute sense of the latter.
Collective guilt, the idea that an entire group should be judged by the characteristics of the worst individuals within it, has always seemed to me the classic definition of racism. Since we didn’t choose our ancestors, neither, logically, should people feel guilt over the deeds of said antecedents. I would agree with the author though, that in practice these ideas do have considerable traction. We can go all the way back to the Book of Exodus and find the quote about how the sins of the father will be visited on his descendants to the third or fourth generation. In Flyn’s case, the question is made more complex because, as the author identifies, many Scots tend to “assume a certain martyr complex” in terms of our country’s historic relationship with England, and she herself admits to getting emotional when discussing the more tragic events of Scotland’s history with English people. In following McMillan in Australia, she had to switch from being the descendant of the victim, to being the descendant of the oppressor.
I have mixed feelings about all this. I’m a keen history reader and acknowledge that every society has been shaped by its history. Personally though I’m more emotionally detached from the past than the author seems to be. We should never cover up what happened before, but neither should we obsess over historical wounds. That generally does more harm than good.
Most reviewers have rated the book more highly than I. I found it a book with many merits, but I didn’t entirely relate to the author’s very personal journey.
*One of the principal tenants of a large landowner.
September 23, 2024
Mana mīļākā tipa dokumentālā literatūra - skaidra tēma, interesanti fakti un ļoti izteikta autores balss, šajā gadījumā poētiskā un ētiski apzinīgā Cal Flyn, ko iepazinu jau viņas brīnišķīgajā Islands of Abandonment.
Pēc Thicker Than Water skaidrs, ka jebkura viņas nākamā grāmata man būs automātiska izvēle lasīšanai.
Autore ir no Skajas salas Skotijā, un nejauši uzzina, ka viens no viņas senčiem ir bijis īstens Austrālijas atklājējs. Viņas pašas esības meklējumi aizved viņu ceļojumā uz pagātni, secinot, ka glorificētajam Angusam Makmilanam, kura vārdā Austrālijā nosauktas ielas, ēkas un teritorijas, bijušas arī ļoti stipras ēnas puses. Aborigēnu slaktiņi, asiņaina iekarošana, nežēlība - un kā vārdā tas viss?
Tumšas lappuses Austrālijas vēsturē, mazāk zināmas, tās uzdod daudz neērtu jautājumu mūsdienu baltajam cilvēkam. Autore slīkst vainas apziņā, cenšas izprast savas dzimtas pagātni un tās sasaisti ar šodienu. Ļoti emocionāla, privāta grāmata, ļooooti iesaku.
Pēc Thicker Than Water skaidrs, ka jebkura viņas nākamā grāmata man būs automātiska izvēle lasīšanai.
Autore ir no Skajas salas Skotijā, un nejauši uzzina, ka viens no viņas senčiem ir bijis īstens Austrālijas atklājējs. Viņas pašas esības meklējumi aizved viņu ceļojumā uz pagātni, secinot, ka glorificētajam Angusam Makmilanam, kura vārdā Austrālijā nosauktas ielas, ēkas un teritorijas, bijušas arī ļoti stipras ēnas puses. Aborigēnu slaktiņi, asiņaina iekarošana, nežēlība - un kā vārdā tas viss?
Tumšas lappuses Austrālijas vēsturē, mazāk zināmas, tās uzdod daudz neērtu jautājumu mūsdienu baltajam cilvēkam. Autore slīkst vainas apziņā, cenšas izprast savas dzimtas pagātni un tās sasaisti ar šodienu. Ļoti emocionāla, privāta grāmata, ļooooti iesaku.
October 18, 2016
I am impressed with the courage and commitment of this writer in confronting the crimes of her ancestor. She undertook several journeys to Australia and into difficult back country in Gippsland, evidently read widely and deeply about aboriginal and settlement history, and interviewed and engaged with descendants of the Gunai people who were her ancestor's victims.
Part-history, part-personal memoir and travelogue, this book takes on the challenging narrative structure of paralleling her own journey (literally and psychologically) with the story of her great-great-great uncle's life. It deals honestly with her struggle to understand the twin truths of her ancestor's nature: Christian pioneer and Scottish refugee and victim of British brutality, and racist mass murderer of aborigines. This is no easy task!
While much of the ground covered about white-black relations in Australia is familiar to many who live here (I hope), it still worth restating much of that history including the 'history wars'. Given her 'outsider' status as a British visitor, I appreciated her grappling with historical scholarship and setting these events against a larger context of the toll of disease and violence against other indigenous peoples. I also applaud her attempt to understand the legacy of these events for aboriginal communities today .
The descriptive writing (particularly of landscape) is very fine at times. Her own confrontation with past evils was handled with nuance as well as recording a spectrum of responses from people she meets in country towns, owners of massacre sites, members of the Gunai community. Reconciliation cannot be mandated or found in rhetorical gestures as Flyn acknowledges. It takes the kind of clear-eyed hard look at the past and acceptance of culpability that this book represents.
I hope that this book finds a broad readership back in the UK and elsewhere. At a time when aboriginal affairs are again being sidelined and politicised (with more black deaths in custody, scandals in the NT justice system and prominent apologists for racism), this book is a timely reminder of the shameful and cruel history that our first people have endured.
Part-history, part-personal memoir and travelogue, this book takes on the challenging narrative structure of paralleling her own journey (literally and psychologically) with the story of her great-great-great uncle's life. It deals honestly with her struggle to understand the twin truths of her ancestor's nature: Christian pioneer and Scottish refugee and victim of British brutality, and racist mass murderer of aborigines. This is no easy task!
While much of the ground covered about white-black relations in Australia is familiar to many who live here (I hope), it still worth restating much of that history including the 'history wars'. Given her 'outsider' status as a British visitor, I appreciated her grappling with historical scholarship and setting these events against a larger context of the toll of disease and violence against other indigenous peoples. I also applaud her attempt to understand the legacy of these events for aboriginal communities today .
The descriptive writing (particularly of landscape) is very fine at times. Her own confrontation with past evils was handled with nuance as well as recording a spectrum of responses from people she meets in country towns, owners of massacre sites, members of the Gunai community. Reconciliation cannot be mandated or found in rhetorical gestures as Flyn acknowledges. It takes the kind of clear-eyed hard look at the past and acceptance of culpability that this book represents.
I hope that this book finds a broad readership back in the UK and elsewhere. At a time when aboriginal affairs are again being sidelined and politicised (with more black deaths in custody, scandals in the NT justice system and prominent apologists for racism), this book is a timely reminder of the shameful and cruel history that our first people have endured.
August 27, 2016
This is an interesting and comprehensive history of McMillan and European settlement in Gippsland, Victoria. I felt Flyn balanced this historical recount by including her personal journey through Gippsland. It grounded and connected her research to the environment where these events unfolded. Her book tackles a difficult topic and examines questionable actions that really can not be easily answered, but also should not be ignored.
August 20, 2021
3.5 Stars!
“The massacre at Warrigal Creek was one of the bloodiest episodes on the very bloody Australian frontier in all, somewhere between eighty and two hundred Gunai people were slaughtered that day.”
The leader of the Highland brigade was Angus McMillan. The ironic thing is that he had fled the horror of the Highland clearances only to inflict horror himself as he created clearances of his own. This so called “Butcher of Gippsland” was the great-great-great uncle of the author.
Mass slaughter was always a key factor in Britain’s empire, with that bizarre combination of entitlement, religious righteousness and greed they raped, stole and terrorised around a quarter of the globe. Of course capitalism and European empires were only getting warmed up, there was still the 20th Century to come…
I mind spending a weekend camping in Gippsland many moons ago and being slightly amused by all the Scottish sounding names, and yet I was oblivious to the fact that this region had such a rich and dark history.
We are forever being told that European empires were educating and teaching these savage masses to come out of their dark and ignorant ways, and yet these were the same educated and enlightened Europeans who were burning and drowning witches for centuries, and who were subservient to ideas of royalty and religion and an example in here of “the white woman” chapter, reminds us that in spite of their persistent claims of superiority and enlightenment white, Europeans could be just as cruel, ignorant and ludicrous as any other so called savage tribe they lorded it over.
Flyn does a good job of describing a lost, mythologised Scotland, a landscape of ghost towns and villages and of displaced and forgotten people, between 1780-1880 around half a million people left the Highlands, she shares some of the more shocking instances, like the one which saw around 1,700 people tricked into a false meeting and then being shipped off to Quebec. Apparently Edward Dwelly’s Gaelic dictionary from 1911 records no less than forty nine different words for sadness.
This memoir does a grand job of contrasting the enduring myth of the British Empire as perpetuated by vested interests with the cruel and harsh reality of what actually happened to those, who were unfortunate enough to be colonised by the god fearing, power loving Brits. There is some lovely writing in here, but ultimately I thought that this could have been cut down a little, if it had just been a little bit shorter and sharper it could have been a great read, as it stands this is still good value and Flyn has a nice eye for detail and capturing certain moments in a lovely and memorable way.
January 27, 2022
It was a chance find in an exhibition in the Skye archive centre that Flyn was sheltering in from the rain. In there was an A3 map of a place called Gippsland, that was coved in fantastic place names such as Snake Island and Sealer’s Cove, but she couldn’t place it. On reading the label she found out that it was in Australia and it showed the explorations of a man called Angus McMillan.
A thought formed in her head to go there as soon as she could to get away from her current woes.
‘He’s a relative of ours’ said her mum.
‘What?’ she replied.
It turns out that Angus McMillan left the Scottish Highlands in 1837 and headed to Australia where he became an explorer and pioneer and had places and landmarks named after him along with a plethora of statues and monuments. Flyn felt a glow of pride about her great-great-great-uncle and decided that she wanted to head out there to find out more about him.
It was there that she would find out about the other side of him. McMillan and his peers were responsible for a series of assaults on the indigenous people. The places where these murders and slaughters took place had a chilling set of names; Skull Creek, Boney Point, Slaughterhouse Gully. To say she was shocked would be an understatement. She now had another raft of questions about her now dark family history that she wanted answers to…
Given the subject material, I must admit that this is not the most cheerful of reads, however, we as a society, need to face up to the past atrocities that were carried out by our relatives. I think that Flyn manages to face up to the revelations of her ancestor really well. She notes when he was an upstanding member of his community and acknowledges when the acts he carried out were utterly barbaric and unacceptable. Meeting with descendants of the survivors of these massacres is as cathartic for her as it is for them. She asks the question: can we be guilty of the actions of an ancestor several generations ago? From this book, I think that the answer is no. However, we have an individual and collective responsibility to apologise for those actions to ensure that they do not happen again.
A thought formed in her head to go there as soon as she could to get away from her current woes.
‘He’s a relative of ours’ said her mum.
‘What?’ she replied.
It turns out that Angus McMillan left the Scottish Highlands in 1837 and headed to Australia where he became an explorer and pioneer and had places and landmarks named after him along with a plethora of statues and monuments. Flyn felt a glow of pride about her great-great-great-uncle and decided that she wanted to head out there to find out more about him.
It was there that she would find out about the other side of him. McMillan and his peers were responsible for a series of assaults on the indigenous people. The places where these murders and slaughters took place had a chilling set of names; Skull Creek, Boney Point, Slaughterhouse Gully. To say she was shocked would be an understatement. She now had another raft of questions about her now dark family history that she wanted answers to…
Given the subject material, I must admit that this is not the most cheerful of reads, however, we as a society, need to face up to the past atrocities that were carried out by our relatives. I think that Flyn manages to face up to the revelations of her ancestor really well. She notes when he was an upstanding member of his community and acknowledges when the acts he carried out were utterly barbaric and unacceptable. Meeting with descendants of the survivors of these massacres is as cathartic for her as it is for them. She asks the question: can we be guilty of the actions of an ancestor several generations ago? From this book, I think that the answer is no. However, we have an individual and collective responsibility to apologise for those actions to ensure that they do not happen again.
January 15, 2019
The history of Australia is a dark history that the current inhabitants would rather forget or pretend didn't happen at all, at least in polite company. After a couple of beers & loosened inhibitions it is highly likely you will get to the truth of what white Australians, at least in country towns, really think. "Nah, we don't have an Aboriginal problem, we killed em all years ago." The city white Australians feel an uncomfortable mix of bleeding heart liberalism, where they just want to help but don't have a clue how; & contempt for Aboriginals for not being able to help themselves & forget the sins of the past, despite many of these sins occurring in living memory for eg the stolen generations were just beginning to heal & then along came the intervention of N. T. whose effects will be felt for many years to come.
So, it is against this back drop that young Cal comes, from Scotland via England, to find out just why her ancestor committed atrocities against Aboriginal people after suffering the Scottish land reforms that saw many people evicted from their homelands. My ancestors also came to Australia fleeing the land reforms so Cal's question is also mine, though I don't have an ancestor like McMilan to follow, the dark history of Australia is also my history.
How do you answer a question like that? I don't think you can really but books like this help to bridge the divide. I am also reading Terra Nullius a very hard going telling of settlement from the Aboriginal point of view. It's a story I have heard before, many times, but not this particular way of telling it. Us modern Australians hate that the country we now love was taken violently from a group of people treated like animals (they were counted as fauna until the 1960's & not included in the census until that time) & had genocide committed against them. But it is the truth & the more that people face up to it means that healing can actually begin, for both sides.
Well that wasn't really a review but read this book anyway.
So, it is against this back drop that young Cal comes, from Scotland via England, to find out just why her ancestor committed atrocities against Aboriginal people after suffering the Scottish land reforms that saw many people evicted from their homelands. My ancestors also came to Australia fleeing the land reforms so Cal's question is also mine, though I don't have an ancestor like McMilan to follow, the dark history of Australia is also my history.
How do you answer a question like that? I don't think you can really but books like this help to bridge the divide. I am also reading Terra Nullius a very hard going telling of settlement from the Aboriginal point of view. It's a story I have heard before, many times, but not this particular way of telling it. Us modern Australians hate that the country we now love was taken violently from a group of people treated like animals (they were counted as fauna until the 1960's & not included in the census until that time) & had genocide committed against them. But it is the truth & the more that people face up to it means that healing can actually begin, for both sides.
Well that wasn't really a review but read this book anyway.
July 11, 2016
I liked lots of this book, which is part-biography, part history, part travel writing, part personal journey and that's perhaps where I have some reservations. There are some lovely moments as the author explores her own past, the dark history of her famous ancestor and the troubling questions as to what drives good men to do evil things? And there are a couple of intense episodes as she explores the sites of the massacres of indigenous people. But for me, the book is a bit all over the place, a bit wooden in parts and a bit heavy-handed in its appraisals.
February 5, 2016
A wonderfully and carefully told story of generational guilt sprung from the opening up of Gippsland by white settlers at the great expense of the Gunai people. If nothing else this book leaves me feeling very uncomfortable about the country I live in and the soil we have built our wealth on. Bravo to Cal Flyn for being so bold and treading where most white Australians dare not tread - the murky sin of the fathers.
March 21, 2024
I'm reading this alongside other members of my family and am looking forward to discussing my complex feelings about it. On the one hand, it is well-written and informative, and happily avoids too much actual memoir writing, beyond a small amount of personal scene setting at the start - which, to be honest, could have been avoided as it's barely mentioned later in the book. On the other hand, at times I struggled to see what the author is trying to do and what her motivations are, and her approach is, occasionally, a little questionable. Ultimately, I think this is because SHE doesn't quite know what she's trying to do, and she openly concludes that she doesn't know how she feels about Angus McMillan - both the man and the legacy. I'm glad I read this though, as despite my own Australian roots, I know very little about this period of history, and it's made me want to learn more.
February 10, 2020
Just excellent.
May 2, 2020
Cal Flyn is a good writer and this is a decent book but it could have been so much better. The jacket asks whether "we" should atone for the sins of our ancestors and Flyn ultimately fails to answer that question. I think the root of this failure lies in her ambivalence about her ancestor Angus MacMillan: for so much of the book she seems to be enthralled by the "rags to riches" allegorical nature of his life and by his determination to make something of himself in Australia. Flyn acknowledges his wrongdoing and his part in the elimination and subjugation of native people but ends up working hard to make the reader feel sorry for how HE ended up rather than how they ended up. Perhaps this reflects how she feels about herself as Flyn gives us glimpses into her own life and some of its turmoil but, again, ultimately fails to show us if she has changed or become enabled to make some life-altering decisions for herself: best illustrated by her less than affectionate portrayal of her boyfriend who never gets a mention again by the end of the book. It's almost as if he ceases to exist in real time and fades of into a kind of dream time like the Aboriginal ancestors.
I'm left not feeling sure of what Flyn really thinks about native Australians: she tours part of the country with two Aborigine men she continually refers to as "the boys" - this felt very uncomfortable and had undertones of the colonial Memsahib or the plantation owner in the Deep South of the USA. Her sympathies for the plight of native Australians are there to see but are no more than many people would get from watching a movie or reading a book: too objective with her own SELF never really affected by the contact (albeit limited) that she has with them.
What IS good about this book is that it is easy to read and made me aware of something I've always been vaguely aware of in Australian history and secondly, as a Scot myself, I can't stand the victim mentality of some of my countrymen/women who blame "the English" for anything and everything they don't like about their lives: looking backwards too frequently rather than to the here and now and to the future. Again, Flyn provides a good example of this tendency when she compares the plight of Aborigines with that of black Americans IN THE PAST rather then here and now. She could have used contemporary events in places such as the Amazon where indigenous people are being slaughtered by landgrabbers and corporations in the name of progress and the economy - pretty much as her ancestor suffered in the Highland Clearances and the Aborigines suffered under people like him.
I'm left not feeling sure of what Flyn really thinks about native Australians: she tours part of the country with two Aborigine men she continually refers to as "the boys" - this felt very uncomfortable and had undertones of the colonial Memsahib or the plantation owner in the Deep South of the USA. Her sympathies for the plight of native Australians are there to see but are no more than many people would get from watching a movie or reading a book: too objective with her own SELF never really affected by the contact (albeit limited) that she has with them.
What IS good about this book is that it is easy to read and made me aware of something I've always been vaguely aware of in Australian history and secondly, as a Scot myself, I can't stand the victim mentality of some of my countrymen/women who blame "the English" for anything and everything they don't like about their lives: looking backwards too frequently rather than to the here and now and to the future. Again, Flyn provides a good example of this tendency when she compares the plight of Aborigines with that of black Americans IN THE PAST rather then here and now. She could have used contemporary events in places such as the Amazon where indigenous people are being slaughtered by landgrabbers and corporations in the name of progress and the economy - pretty much as her ancestor suffered in the Highland Clearances and the Aborigines suffered under people like him.
February 4, 2017
A fantastic read. Flyn's writing style means you're constantly turning the pages. She effortlessly weaves in and out of poetic accounts of her homeland, humorous and humbling stories of her travels, and comprehensive retelling of the historical events of her ancestor. You find yourself taking the journey with her, from the majestic backdrop of the Scottish Highlands to the open expanses of Australia. You live the highs and lows of the author's travel experience, and oddly at times sympathise with her ancestor through her depiction of his story (and at times immediately brings you crashing back to reality when giving the enormity of his atrocities). And all this in her first book! I can't recommend it enough!
November 22, 2025
A very interesting concept and certainly one that many people shy away from, and it's not without merit. It is a little confused; it's very clear that this book was written by somebody in their twenties. Which isn't to say it's entirely a negative thing -- there's a sincerity and passion in here that's so un-selfconscious that I wonder if it would even be possible outside of that age range. But there is a sense of pretentiousness and self-obsession running through parts of this book that's also typical of the age and that we've all been guilty of, which while not entirely unforgiveable in a memoir, is less so when the memoir is blended with history and, indeed, somebody else's struggle.
I can see where Flyn's coming from and what she's trying to do, but again, I think youth has not allowed for the kind of nuance needed in this situation. It's clear that she does not support her ancestor's actions in the slightest, and it's also clear that she's trying to paint a three-dimensional picture and illustrate that even terrible people have good qualities; that sometimes circumstances arise and people do terrible things. This is all a fair point to make, and in fact I dislike the widespread idea that history's bad guys are just one dimensionally evil. So I have no issue with the fact that this book tries to flesh McMillan out and does a decent job of it. It's clear Flyn is going for a kind of "there but for the grace of god go I" look at things, which is very important to acknowledge when it comes to this kind of thing -- if we go through our lives acting like we'd never do harm because we're a Good Person, we're going to be more susceptible to causing said harm. It's important to examine this potential in all of us. This is what Flyn is aiming for, and for the most part does decently. However, there are more than a few moments where she seems far too sympathetic and forgiving. The intent is clear, but sometimes the writing slips out of nuance and into an almost clumsy defence. I also have to admit there are some parts of this book like verge on self-centred and too heavy on the white guilt, but I put this down to inexperience and a complicated topic rather than malice or ignorance.
Having said all that, this is a well-researched book, compellingly written if sometimes a little heavy on the purple prose. It's full of genuine passion and a sincere desire to face the truth, which is always comendable. Flyn has also taken care to include both Indigenous sources and Indigenous voices, which helps to temper some of the issues I outlined above. The information that she provides from her research also seems to be solid and respectful, and is woven in well to the rest of the narrative so it feels like one linked story rather than an us vs them deal. It's clear the spirit is here, and the resulting book, despite its slight flaws and occasional inexperience, is still an informative and necessary look at the kind of people that many white Europeans probably have lurking in our family trees. These atrocities were not so long ago, in the grand scheme of things. It's well past time we actually sat down with these uncomfortable facts.
I can see where Flyn's coming from and what she's trying to do, but again, I think youth has not allowed for the kind of nuance needed in this situation. It's clear that she does not support her ancestor's actions in the slightest, and it's also clear that she's trying to paint a three-dimensional picture and illustrate that even terrible people have good qualities; that sometimes circumstances arise and people do terrible things. This is all a fair point to make, and in fact I dislike the widespread idea that history's bad guys are just one dimensionally evil. So I have no issue with the fact that this book tries to flesh McMillan out and does a decent job of it. It's clear Flyn is going for a kind of "there but for the grace of god go I" look at things, which is very important to acknowledge when it comes to this kind of thing -- if we go through our lives acting like we'd never do harm because we're a Good Person, we're going to be more susceptible to causing said harm. It's important to examine this potential in all of us. This is what Flyn is aiming for, and for the most part does decently. However, there are more than a few moments where she seems far too sympathetic and forgiving. The intent is clear, but sometimes the writing slips out of nuance and into an almost clumsy defence. I also have to admit there are some parts of this book like verge on self-centred and too heavy on the white guilt, but I put this down to inexperience and a complicated topic rather than malice or ignorance.
Having said all that, this is a well-researched book, compellingly written if sometimes a little heavy on the purple prose. It's full of genuine passion and a sincere desire to face the truth, which is always comendable. Flyn has also taken care to include both Indigenous sources and Indigenous voices, which helps to temper some of the issues I outlined above. The information that she provides from her research also seems to be solid and respectful, and is woven in well to the rest of the narrative so it feels like one linked story rather than an us vs them deal. It's clear the spirit is here, and the resulting book, despite its slight flaws and occasional inexperience, is still an informative and necessary look at the kind of people that many white Europeans probably have lurking in our family trees. These atrocities were not so long ago, in the grand scheme of things. It's well past time we actually sat down with these uncomfortable facts.
September 28, 2017
A really powerful and honest book that doesn't shy away from exploring the controversial exploitation and near-genocide that accompanied the white over running of Australia. Flyn begins her story in Scotland, in the fiercely spectacular Hebrides, with the history of the Highland clearances and the brutal destruction of a centuries old culture that drives her forbear Angus McMillan, to try his luck in the new frontier of Australia, a land of opportunity for those with initiative and drive. But as Flyn discovers, this victim of the clearances, became in turn, an author of some of the most horrific genocidal massacres of Australian Aboriginal clans ever seen. And yet .... Flyn's odyssey through the eastern states of Australia is a search for understanding, an attempt to reconcile the many aspects of McMillan while acknowledging his homicidal role and the destruction that he wrought on an ancient way of life, beautifully attuned to living sympathetically in the Australian, more specifically Gippsland, environment. The long term impact on the aboriginal clans has been disastrous, and in her efforts to put together the full picture, Flyn visits massacre sites, homesteads, long abandoned trails of discovery, waterholes and cemeteries, recreating events and attacks, reimagining a way of life long gone. She mourns a long disappeared people and culture, custodians of a beautiful land which she has the opportunity to explore with local companions, and struggles to synthesise the person inextricably linked with this calamity. A victim become destroyer, a Christian become murderer, a poet become butcher. Potentially a victim himself of the colonial age and attitudes, she cannot ultimately excuse him and accepts instead with resignation and regret, the role he played.
Flyn is a journalist, and this is her journey of discovery, come at a time in her life when she needed to reassess her own path. It is told clearly, with insight, with beautiful passages of scenic description that stay with you. Her journey is not comfortable - she is deliberate in her efforts to confront the past, meeting with the aboriginal community that has survived the massacres, and has striven for justice and restitution since. Her research explains the dire situation that has beset them. It is a difficult thing to face, when you see the unfairness, recognise the the complicity in your family's role in it and seek to relate to the victims. A powerful work
Flyn is a journalist, and this is her journey of discovery, come at a time in her life when she needed to reassess her own path. It is told clearly, with insight, with beautiful passages of scenic description that stay with you. Her journey is not comfortable - she is deliberate in her efforts to confront the past, meeting with the aboriginal community that has survived the massacres, and has striven for justice and restitution since. Her research explains the dire situation that has beset them. It is a difficult thing to face, when you see the unfairness, recognise the the complicity in your family's role in it and seek to relate to the victims. A powerful work
September 13, 2020
I had heard of the Europeans hunting the aboriginals years back when I lived in this wonderful country myself for a few years. Still it was enlightening to listen to Flyn’s investigative progress and share in her travel experiences. This mix of present and past proved to be interesting. I had first expected the book to be fiction for some reason, so was a little disapppointed. However, I grew to respect the work she had done for the book, even if the trail became a little too sentimental at times. Yes, terrible things happened in other places, atrocities were committed by other people and who knows what one one’s self is capable of. But still, there is no need to white-wash these acts in any way. There is a need to face them. I recommend the book to all those interested in Australian history.
May 18, 2021
I feel that this is a book everyone should read, especially if like me you’re from Scotland and know next to nothing about the genocide committed by the Scottish colonialists in Australia. The book is interesting and readable whilst posing a deep challenge to white western people and, in particular, Scottish people. Behind the cacophony of Scottish exceptionalism so prevalent in Scottish society and its politics is the real truth of the complicity and disproportionate Scottish involvement in the horrors of Empire. It may be convenient to blame it all on England, but I think we in Scotland (not meaning to quote Thatcher there) have a duty to recognise and learn about the horrors perpetrated by Scots in the Empire and, where possible, try to make reparations for them (well done to Glasgow uni for doing exactly that).
January 26, 2022
A personal account of the impact of colonialism on the lives of others from a descendant of a settler and coloniser. The book examines the evil good men do when exposed to conditions that allow the othering of our fellow humans and how we all may be as capable of acts we now regard as abhorrent. This is not the Nazis, not the bloodlands of the Holocaust but Australia. Original sin, if you like. Read it and be reminded.
April 11, 2020
The title, cover and byline don't do this book justice, at all. I found Flyn's reflections on the attitudes of contemporary Australians as she researched the life of her great-great-great uncle, an emigrant driven out by the Highland Clearances who went on to lead the massacre of the Gunai people of Gippsland, particularly insightful.
September 24, 2021
An interesting and very readable account of Cal’s Gt,Gt,Gt Uncle Angus McMillan. Part travelogue, memoir and history covering the massacre at Warrigal Creek in Gippsland and the whole difficult subject of white-black relations in Australia as she confronts the feelings of guilt she carries for her ancestor’s actions.
September 9, 2022
I read this after I read Cal Flynn’s Islands of Abandonment. This was a fascinating insight into a piece of Australian history I knew very little about and more than anything was an insight into how fears can drive people to do terrible things
May 22, 2017
Fascinating story of the author's ancestor, driven from Barra to Australia by the Clearances, only to engage in a genocidal war against the Gunai when he got there.
July 13, 2017
A balanced and well researched book. I liked the journalistic style. Her ability to see both the bad and the good in her forebear was central to the book. A thoroughly brave undertaking.
March 2, 2021
Well written moving narrative
July 28, 2024
3 ½ tähteä
May 28, 2023
Enjoyable, enlightening, informative and heartfelt.
I think this is one of those books we should all read. It uncovers an unpalatable, uncomfortable and universal truth so tragically associated with the British Empire and colonial times. Not only of cruelty to those in occupied countries, but at home in the U.K. too. Highly recommended.
I think this is one of those books we should all read. It uncovers an unpalatable, uncomfortable and universal truth so tragically associated with the British Empire and colonial times. Not only of cruelty to those in occupied countries, but at home in the U.K. too. Highly recommended.
April 19, 2023
Loved this book. I was introduced to it while doing a wonderful but short course on Aboriginal history of Australia. The lecturer introduced us to many references but this one took my eye and I eventually followed up and read. Flyn discovered that her ancestor was Angus McMillan who had migrated to Australia from Scotland and that there was a statue to him in Australia. She was intrigued and decided to look further into the story. Flyn eventually came to Australia and followed in his footsteps finding along the way stories that she would have rather not known of violence and dispossession of the original inhabitants that she could not forgive. Australia has a sad and violent history that is far too often covered over with stories of explorers, pioneers, hardship and bravery, while there is concurrently stories of cruelty, violence and inhumanity that need to be told and understood.
April 19, 2024
I really enjoyed Cal Flyn’s Islands of Abandonment, so I sought out this: her previous and first book. We gave it to my parents for Jolabokaflod and now Fran and I have read it, too. We’re going to have a family book club discussion about it when we go on holiday to Wales together.
This is another non-fiction travel book. Flyn, who is from the Scottish Highlands, has a great-great-great-uncle, Angus McMillan, who emigrated from Barra to Australia. He was responsible for massacres against the indigenous Gunai people he encountered in Gippsland, Victoria. Flyn travels to Australia to learn more about her ancestor’s life there and to try to understand what may have driven him to such acts of brutality.
I was fascinated by this narrative and learned a lot about the early British invaders of Australia. It resonated with my recent interest in Antarctic explorers and the murder of Native American Osage people in Killers of the Flower Moon. I learned a lot from this and its images will stay with me.
I read the finals chapters late at night. I couldn’t and didn’t want to stop. The writing was so beautiful and compelling and I could see the germ of the idea for Flyn’s next book (Islands of Abandonment) growing out of her interest in the abandoned mining towns she encountered on her travels.
December 8, 2016
I really enjoyed your raw and succinctly written book, thanks Cal Flyn! Loved the personal story/travelogue, interwoven with a brutal, yet fascinating part of Oz history, a lot of which I wasn't fully aware of. He was a complex man and a snappy dresser, Angus! I felt the authors quandry through the pages, of rightly wanting to be proud of Mc Millan's exploratory achievements, whilst at the same time trying to come to terms with a sad and somewhat devastating time for so many. Cal should be very proud (as I'll bet her family also is), of 'Thicker Than Water', the obvious extensive research, and passion for her tale, the eerie link of early Australia and the Highlanders, makes this book a brilliant read! It should be included on our schools Australian history reading list, IMO.
I would highly recommend this book to readers of all ages, from teens to seniors! For those reader's interested in the pioneer days of Australia, but, also for the wonderful current day story of a young Cal following in the footsteps of her Explorer forbear trying to make sense of an exciting, yet dark time where some men behaved badly and secrets were 'almost' buried to protect the guilty, and make the history books less bloody. Cal Flyn is a fine story-teller who makes you feel like you are back there cutting a swath through the bush with Angus and his Constituents.
I would highly recommend this book to readers of all ages, from teens to seniors! For those reader's interested in the pioneer days of Australia, but, also for the wonderful current day story of a young Cal following in the footsteps of her Explorer forbear trying to make sense of an exciting, yet dark time where some men behaved badly and secrets were 'almost' buried to protect the guilty, and make the history books less bloody. Cal Flyn is a fine story-teller who makes you feel like you are back there cutting a swath through the bush with Angus and his Constituents.
August 9, 2016
Part history and part travelogue, this is a great read for anyone interested in Australian history, the Aboriginal people and the effects of 19th century colonialism on the indigenous population.
The dicovery of a family link to Scottish pioneer Angus McMillan leads the author on a journey through Australia to retrace his steps and try to understand how her ancestor could be capable of leading massacres of the Gunai people in Gippsland. The book switches back and forth between the events of the 1800s and her present day journey, thoughts and experiences. I found this method very engaging and liked that she followed the story through to the current issues still being discussed and debated in Australia today.
Flyn confronts these issues in a bold new way, she conducts potentially uncomfortable interviews, trains as a cattle station hand (a jilaroo) in blistering heat, hikes on overgrown trails and visits massacre sites that have been forgotten by many. In fact we find that the topic of Aboriginal genocide is often swept aside or angrily dismissed in present day Australia which makes this book all the more important and refreshing.
The dicovery of a family link to Scottish pioneer Angus McMillan leads the author on a journey through Australia to retrace his steps and try to understand how her ancestor could be capable of leading massacres of the Gunai people in Gippsland. The book switches back and forth between the events of the 1800s and her present day journey, thoughts and experiences. I found this method very engaging and liked that she followed the story through to the current issues still being discussed and debated in Australia today.
Flyn confronts these issues in a bold new way, she conducts potentially uncomfortable interviews, trains as a cattle station hand (a jilaroo) in blistering heat, hikes on overgrown trails and visits massacre sites that have been forgotten by many. In fact we find that the topic of Aboriginal genocide is often swept aside or angrily dismissed in present day Australia which makes this book all the more important and refreshing.
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