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One Hundred Years of Dirt
Violence, treachery and cruelty run through the generational veins of Rick Morton's family. A horrific accident thrusts his mother and siblings into a world impossible for them to navigate, a life of poverty and drug addiction One Hundred Years of Dirt is an unflinching memoir in which the mother is a hero who is never rewarded. It is a meditation on the anger, fear of others and an obsession with real and imagined borders. Yet it is also a testimony to the strength of familial love and endurance.
200 pages, Paperback
First published July 30, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 375 reviews
August 9, 2018
I finished reading this extraordinary book this morning. And even though I have finished, I have carried it around with me all day. I have the strong instinct to hold it close. It’s with me now as I sit poolside at my boys’ swimming lessons. It’s that kind of book.
Rick Morton is only 31 and yet to read his memoir it feels like he has lived the lives of 100 men. Born into a family of people of the land in outback Queensland, Rick’s heritage handed down by his father, grandfather and the men before was one that contained anger, conflict and a fair amount of domestic toxicity. When his immediate family imploded, Rick, his mum and siblings were forced into a struggle to survive in a situation not of their own making. Deb Morton shines through as an extraordinary light for her kids in the face of so much hell.
Rick’s devastating and often sharply hilarious words, on poverty and privilege, cruelty, homophobia and mental health are
powerful, necessary and urgent for Australia. This book could be a Year 12 text too, it has much to teach us all. Six stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Rick Morton is only 31 and yet to read his memoir it feels like he has lived the lives of 100 men. Born into a family of people of the land in outback Queensland, Rick’s heritage handed down by his father, grandfather and the men before was one that contained anger, conflict and a fair amount of domestic toxicity. When his immediate family imploded, Rick, his mum and siblings were forced into a struggle to survive in a situation not of their own making. Deb Morton shines through as an extraordinary light for her kids in the face of so much hell.
Rick’s devastating and often sharply hilarious words, on poverty and privilege, cruelty, homophobia and mental health are
powerful, necessary and urgent for Australia. This book could be a Year 12 text too, it has much to teach us all. Six stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
June 28, 2021
4.5★
“My father was five when his own dad threw him into a wall and ruptured his spleen. He was sent, alone and afraid, to Adelaide, 1100 kilometres away, where he had emergency surgery.”
I enjoy hearing and reading Rick’s reporting on news and current issues in Australia. He can be witty and amusing, but at heart he is passionate and, I think, kind of terrified a lot of the time.
I just read his most recent book, My Year Of Living Vulnerably, so I was aware of much of his background and childhood, which is the subject of this one. Had I read this first, I think I would have been stunned. I chose the quote above because it represents the history of his family. It is fascinating. Violence at every turn.
The Morton family owned a huge part of Australia, and the men ran it ruthlessly, beating their families with impunity. There’s nobody to hear anyone’s shouts and no medical help nearby if you’re badly damaged.
“George was king of both the cattlemen and his environment in a vast complex of fear. That is, above all else, what the outback can install in the uninitiated. Fear of the weather, fear of the beasts, fear that if something goes truly, terribly wrong, those distances are so great, so unreachable, that hope becomes a nebulous term.”
Unreachable is right.
“Here, on our patch of dirt, little of the normal world crept in. We lived fourteen hours’ drive west of Brisbane, sixteen hours north-west of Sydney and the same distance north-east of Adelaide. . . . it might have been another universe.”
It’s like the stories of the American Wild West. I was really interested in the family history as well as the excellent historical background Morton adds. He doesn’t shy away from what happened to the indigenous people who were pushed aside as the country was colonised.
“Tragedy is a snake upon the continent, undulating through the thousands of years. The dispossession of Aboriginal people came first, blunt and traumatic, followed by the self-inflicted wounds of families like my own in places already well-versed in suffering.”
The tears and the blood of both the local Aborigines and the Morton family and their ilk have been so soaked into the land that Morton identifies that as contributing to the trauma that has so badly damaged him and afflicted his life.
His mum, Deb, has always adored him, whether or not she understood him as a little fella. She told him once -
“You’re not my son. . . . The aliens left you under the cabbage patch to observe humanity and one day you’ll have to go back and tell them what you saw.”
It has been a running joke ever since, and now that he’s a journalist, reporting nationally, the aliens can obviously just beam up whatever information he has directly now.
Life on the land is dangerous at the best of times. Machinery, fuel, chemicals, tools, rifles, dams, snakes – these are some of the things that as a parent, you are always aware of. Kids, however, just see everything as a place to play. Men often see kids as free labour, forgetting they don’t have the knowledge or experience to avoid danger.
A lighter and gas from fuel brought Rick’s older brother Toby’s life undone. Toby was his hero, but over the years he has succumbed to whatever drink or drug was available, paid for with whatever funds he could scrounge or steal.
While Toby was in hospital, Dad raced off the young governess and then raced off with her, deserting Deb, who was left alone with three kids, dirt-poor and at her wits’ end. They suffered grinding poverty, an overused phrase but so apt here, as they were nearly ground into dust.
Have I mentioned Rick is gay? No, I thought not, nor did he mention it to anyone for a long time. As a tiny child, nobody could understand what he was saying. (The first sign he was left by aliens, perhaps?) So he wasn’t your average kid from the start, and he’s certainly not your average man now.
He discusses his coming to terms with himself, his journalism and reporting career, his travels, and the interesting people and history he’s run across. Along with that are his life-and-death struggles with depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
“Nothing predicts the deterioration of your mental health more than being queer.”
It’s a great read that jumps around a bit, as he moves back and forth through his life and events of the day and how those events may trigger him straight back to an early event.
It’s not cheerful, particularly for anyone with triggers about family violence and suicide. But it’s an eye-opener for readers who have had more sheltered lives.
Lest you think it is all misery and woe, I would like to leave you with the terrific piece with which he ended the book. It is not a spoiler!
“There is always time for wonder.
In a large escarpment outside of Birdsville there are some dingo caves where a person can stand, as I have, and survey the empire of dirt first established by my great-grandfather Celsus Morton. Facing in one direction, everything that fits into my field of vision is still in the hands of my extended family. It is an impossible amount of space coated like rust by gibber rocks. Imagine a burnt-red mirror laid across the 10,625 square kilometres that made up the old Roseberth Station (before it was cleaved in two) and then see it shatter into billions of pieces over the landscape. That’s the gibber rocks. They seem to change colour as the sun moves across the sky. The direct light of midday gives the rocks a deep purple hue but as the sun’s rays become angular in the late afternoon, the rust colour really begins to pop. From this vantage point, as far as the eye can see, the property seems like the surface of Mars. You can almost picture the scientists roaming across the surface and pointing out the telltale signs of where water once flowed but hasn’t for millennia.
It is easy, under such condition, to find yourself wondering how anything at all can grow out here. Though of course you know that things do.”
There's a lovely article and photo of Rick and Deb in BurnettToday, April 2021. https://burnetttoday.com.au/news/2021...
I’d recommend reading this book first and then read My Year Of Living Vulnerably.
Link to my review of My Year of Living Vulnerably
“My father was five when his own dad threw him into a wall and ruptured his spleen. He was sent, alone and afraid, to Adelaide, 1100 kilometres away, where he had emergency surgery.”
I enjoy hearing and reading Rick’s reporting on news and current issues in Australia. He can be witty and amusing, but at heart he is passionate and, I think, kind of terrified a lot of the time.
I just read his most recent book, My Year Of Living Vulnerably, so I was aware of much of his background and childhood, which is the subject of this one. Had I read this first, I think I would have been stunned. I chose the quote above because it represents the history of his family. It is fascinating. Violence at every turn.
The Morton family owned a huge part of Australia, and the men ran it ruthlessly, beating their families with impunity. There’s nobody to hear anyone’s shouts and no medical help nearby if you’re badly damaged.
“George was king of both the cattlemen and his environment in a vast complex of fear. That is, above all else, what the outback can install in the uninitiated. Fear of the weather, fear of the beasts, fear that if something goes truly, terribly wrong, those distances are so great, so unreachable, that hope becomes a nebulous term.”
Unreachable is right.
“Here, on our patch of dirt, little of the normal world crept in. We lived fourteen hours’ drive west of Brisbane, sixteen hours north-west of Sydney and the same distance north-east of Adelaide. . . . it might have been another universe.”
It’s like the stories of the American Wild West. I was really interested in the family history as well as the excellent historical background Morton adds. He doesn’t shy away from what happened to the indigenous people who were pushed aside as the country was colonised.
“Tragedy is a snake upon the continent, undulating through the thousands of years. The dispossession of Aboriginal people came first, blunt and traumatic, followed by the self-inflicted wounds of families like my own in places already well-versed in suffering.”
The tears and the blood of both the local Aborigines and the Morton family and their ilk have been so soaked into the land that Morton identifies that as contributing to the trauma that has so badly damaged him and afflicted his life.
His mum, Deb, has always adored him, whether or not she understood him as a little fella. She told him once -
“You’re not my son. . . . The aliens left you under the cabbage patch to observe humanity and one day you’ll have to go back and tell them what you saw.”
It has been a running joke ever since, and now that he’s a journalist, reporting nationally, the aliens can obviously just beam up whatever information he has directly now.
Life on the land is dangerous at the best of times. Machinery, fuel, chemicals, tools, rifles, dams, snakes – these are some of the things that as a parent, you are always aware of. Kids, however, just see everything as a place to play. Men often see kids as free labour, forgetting they don’t have the knowledge or experience to avoid danger.
A lighter and gas from fuel brought Rick’s older brother Toby’s life undone. Toby was his hero, but over the years he has succumbed to whatever drink or drug was available, paid for with whatever funds he could scrounge or steal.
While Toby was in hospital, Dad raced off the young governess and then raced off with her, deserting Deb, who was left alone with three kids, dirt-poor and at her wits’ end. They suffered grinding poverty, an overused phrase but so apt here, as they were nearly ground into dust.
Have I mentioned Rick is gay? No, I thought not, nor did he mention it to anyone for a long time. As a tiny child, nobody could understand what he was saying. (The first sign he was left by aliens, perhaps?) So he wasn’t your average kid from the start, and he’s certainly not your average man now.
He discusses his coming to terms with himself, his journalism and reporting career, his travels, and the interesting people and history he’s run across. Along with that are his life-and-death struggles with depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
“Nothing predicts the deterioration of your mental health more than being queer.”
It’s a great read that jumps around a bit, as he moves back and forth through his life and events of the day and how those events may trigger him straight back to an early event.
It’s not cheerful, particularly for anyone with triggers about family violence and suicide. But it’s an eye-opener for readers who have had more sheltered lives.
Lest you think it is all misery and woe, I would like to leave you with the terrific piece with which he ended the book. It is not a spoiler!
“There is always time for wonder.
In a large escarpment outside of Birdsville there are some dingo caves where a person can stand, as I have, and survey the empire of dirt first established by my great-grandfather Celsus Morton. Facing in one direction, everything that fits into my field of vision is still in the hands of my extended family. It is an impossible amount of space coated like rust by gibber rocks. Imagine a burnt-red mirror laid across the 10,625 square kilometres that made up the old Roseberth Station (before it was cleaved in two) and then see it shatter into billions of pieces over the landscape. That’s the gibber rocks. They seem to change colour as the sun moves across the sky. The direct light of midday gives the rocks a deep purple hue but as the sun’s rays become angular in the late afternoon, the rust colour really begins to pop. From this vantage point, as far as the eye can see, the property seems like the surface of Mars. You can almost picture the scientists roaming across the surface and pointing out the telltale signs of where water once flowed but hasn’t for millennia.
It is easy, under such condition, to find yourself wondering how anything at all can grow out here. Though of course you know that things do.”
There's a lovely article and photo of Rick and Deb in BurnettToday, April 2021. https://burnetttoday.com.au/news/2021...
I’d recommend reading this book first and then read My Year Of Living Vulnerably.
Link to my review of My Year of Living Vulnerably
August 18, 2022
Morton discusses so many issues we don’t talk about enough in this country: class, privilege, family violence, transgenerational trauma and poverty. This clear-eyed memoir is raw and tough and beautiful. It’s also touching and funny and Morton is surely one of the best non-fiction writers we’ve seen for a while.
April 16, 2022
One Hundred Years of Dirt by Rick Morton is a captivating memoir and one which I won't forget anytime soon. The family history of the Morton's is not an overall pleasant read because it tells of the hard truths of what it's really like living on the land.
Rick Morton has done an extraordinary job in writing this memoir as it covers so many issues like violence, abuse and poverty just to name a few. Highly recommended.
Rick Morton has done an extraordinary job in writing this memoir as it covers so many issues like violence, abuse and poverty just to name a few. Highly recommended.
August 12, 2018
Wow. This is a powerful and unflinching book. Morton tells the story of his family. His dad was abused as a child and absent as a father. His mum raised three children through humiliating poverty, with one drifting into jail and drugs. And then there's Rick, clearly brilliant, clearly gay, and clearly beaten up by the conditions of his life, trying to make some sense of it.
The obvious comparison for this book is A.B Facey's A Fortunate Life. If only because neither of them ask for pity or rail in hatred against the system that drove their misfortune. I normally avoid this genre of misery porn. But by tying his story to larger themes and studies, Rick's book is a picture of Australia as it is lived by many as much as it is about his own ups and (many) downs.
I tell myself I avoid this genre because I think worse of its audience than I do the authors. Where the latter seek to escape their misfortune, the former chase safe, indulgent exposure to it. But it's also just as safe and indulgent to take the path I have. Preferring abstract statistics and broad academic studies to know about the place you live in, never needing to get dirty by seeing how it is actually lived. There's one side of my family who claim a lineage from Facey and whose lives today are not that dissimilar from the Morton's. But it's far far easier for me to read a Productivity Commission report than it is to pick up the phone and say hello.
One Hundred Years of Dirt is a cliche free look at a segment of Australian life. A compelling reminder of how at least some people get by. Of the need for our society to do better by them, not just in our laws and systems, but in our personal willingness to look them in the eye. To listen and at least try to understand. This book places Rick Morton in the front rank of important new voices on Australia. Let's hope we hear much more from him in the years to come.
The obvious comparison for this book is A.B Facey's A Fortunate Life. If only because neither of them ask for pity or rail in hatred against the system that drove their misfortune. I normally avoid this genre of misery porn. But by tying his story to larger themes and studies, Rick's book is a picture of Australia as it is lived by many as much as it is about his own ups and (many) downs.
I tell myself I avoid this genre because I think worse of its audience than I do the authors. Where the latter seek to escape their misfortune, the former chase safe, indulgent exposure to it. But it's also just as safe and indulgent to take the path I have. Preferring abstract statistics and broad academic studies to know about the place you live in, never needing to get dirty by seeing how it is actually lived. There's one side of my family who claim a lineage from Facey and whose lives today are not that dissimilar from the Morton's. But it's far far easier for me to read a Productivity Commission report than it is to pick up the phone and say hello.
One Hundred Years of Dirt is a cliche free look at a segment of Australian life. A compelling reminder of how at least some people get by. Of the need for our society to do better by them, not just in our laws and systems, but in our personal willingness to look them in the eye. To listen and at least try to understand. This book places Rick Morton in the front rank of important new voices on Australia. Let's hope we hear much more from him in the years to come.
September 16, 2019
I absolutely loved this book. Recently I had the opportunity to interview Rick Morton for an event, and to me, the voice that comes through in his writing is identical to how he then comes across and speaks. Authentic and genuine, humble, funny, and no bullshit. It's remarkable what this book achieves in such few pages - a master lesson in understated storytelling that still feels hugely impactful. Full of love, too. Just superb.
October 1, 2018
From time to time, you read a memoir that challenges you to remember just how much you take for granted. This is one of those.
It reminded me of “Hillbilly Elegy” and “Educated” by Tara Westover, although with a distinctly Australian flavour.
Honest and thought-provoking.
It reminded me of “Hillbilly Elegy” and “Educated” by Tara Westover, although with a distinctly Australian flavour.
Honest and thought-provoking.
November 7, 2018
Raw and compelling and funny and just beautiful; You should read it.
December 26, 2018
A really interesting look at poverty and class politics in Australia, but I would’ve enjoyed seeing more of the personal story in there.
August 4, 2018
An incredible story and told in such a captivating and clear way. Morton never shrinks from the full truth of a life filled from the beginning (and earlier) with hardship and struggle. And he analyses the causes and cuts through bullshit so precisely it never feels like a lecture.
August 25, 2019
Insightful, poignant, confronting - full of tough stories and tough truths about family and country, with generous sprinklings of dry wit.
This telling of one person's story is blended with reference to social research to place the personal into the broader context.
This telling of one person's story is blended with reference to social research to place the personal into the broader context.
February 25, 2019
Oh my goodness, where to start? I cried and laughed and cried. Just read it.
December 31, 2018
100 Years of Dirt is being thrown onto the buffet table and panic eating the lot (food = tough things), where most of us would struggle with a couple of courses. And then telling the story with good grace and a fair bit of humour. Couldn't put it down.
January 26, 2019
A great read. This all the things I love in non-fiction: beautiful clean writing; interesting narrative with colourful stories of growing up in Australia’s remote outback, his brother’s ice addiction, coming out, & forging a career despite the barriers of poverty; but also erudite and goes beyond the anecdotes to give us a big picture view. Morton has researched these issues & how they’re playing out across the nation.
His writing is crisp, matter-of-fact, and honest, but with a sense of humour too. I enjoyed his company as a narrator and (despite the confronting topics) kept wanting to pick it up again when I wasn’t reading it.
A good companion read for The Lost Man by Jane Harper as it goes behind the scenes as it were, of outback life. Also interesting to compare books like Educated by Tara Westover and Hillbilly Elegy which also show how hard it is to overcome poverty and get a university education and a career. I found this one a more engaging and direct read in some ways. His forthright, unvarnished style (but still inventive writing) coupled with the research, appealed to me.
Highly recommended.
His writing is crisp, matter-of-fact, and honest, but with a sense of humour too. I enjoyed his company as a narrator and (despite the confronting topics) kept wanting to pick it up again when I wasn’t reading it.
A good companion read for The Lost Man by Jane Harper as it goes behind the scenes as it were, of outback life. Also interesting to compare books like Educated by Tara Westover and Hillbilly Elegy which also show how hard it is to overcome poverty and get a university education and a career. I found this one a more engaging and direct read in some ways. His forthright, unvarnished style (but still inventive writing) coupled with the research, appealed to me.
Highly recommended.
January 17, 2019
I may be biased, because I love Rick and think he’s brilliant, but this book is brilliant. It’s so well-written, so well-researched, so honest, so insightful, and so important. Most of all, it’s refreshing and rare in an industry filled with memoirs with near-identical narratives. I feel privileged to have read Rick’s story.
December 10, 2018
i thought this book could have worked better without jumping to the social commentary - I enjoyed it best when it delved into the writer's experience as a young person - and i felt that it was some how distancing to keep reverting to journalist throughout the memoir.
March 17, 2019
This book is about growing up poor in Australia, so while the anecdotes differ, this story is my story - Rick Morton wrote it. Like myself, Rick now somehow occupies the middle class and has the privilege of an insight that others don’t who have never straddled both worlds.
Read
September 8, 2025Very very good
November 8, 2020
The autobiographical family tale in the early parts of this memoir is the part that I liked best, while I enjoyed the story of Morton’s journo career and the discussions into the roots of poverty in Australia (which felt like a lecture) considerably less. I don’t deny that his analysis on the current state of the Australian classes have merit and his lamenting the unbalanced socioeconomic situation leading to poverty and addiction is valid, however Morton’s palpable personal resentment interfered with the message he was trying to get across. It seems to me that the author had a big chip on his shoulder which makes his monologues extremely bitter, a turn off for me.
Don’t be turn away from my personal reaction though, this memoir has many good things going for it, sharp, witty and moving, it is very well written and delivers some powerful insights.
Fav. Quotes:
To understand a person, you must understand his father. This is true of Rodney and it is true of myself, too. Ours is a trauma passed from one generation to another, family heirlooms that are bequeathed by the living.
On one trip back from the pub, my father turned to Mum and complained that he could not fold the pram properly. ‘That’s because your fucking son is in there,’ she screamed at him, noticing my little baby body gallantly holding the pram open.
… social mobility is not a train you get to board after you’ve scraped together enough for the ticket. You have to build the whole bloody engine. Some have nothing to work with except a spoon and hand-me-down psychological distress.
My first attempt at running away from a medical establishment failed on account of the fact I just pretended to be asleep in the back seat of a car. I made the very junior mistake of thinking doctors and parents, like the T. Rex in Jurassic Park, have a visual system based on movement. This is perfectly inaccurate. I was only six and I got the tetanus needle. Such is life.
Your parents prescribe a set of dimensions in which you are to live. They govern the most trivial things and are the foundation for the most meaningful. And one day your parents are gone, superseded by this strange new world in which they are fallible, utterly human creatures. You have seen how the magic trick works.
Don’t be turn away from my personal reaction though, this memoir has many good things going for it, sharp, witty and moving, it is very well written and delivers some powerful insights.
Fav. Quotes:
To understand a person, you must understand his father. This is true of Rodney and it is true of myself, too. Ours is a trauma passed from one generation to another, family heirlooms that are bequeathed by the living.
On one trip back from the pub, my father turned to Mum and complained that he could not fold the pram properly. ‘That’s because your fucking son is in there,’ she screamed at him, noticing my little baby body gallantly holding the pram open.
… social mobility is not a train you get to board after you’ve scraped together enough for the ticket. You have to build the whole bloody engine. Some have nothing to work with except a spoon and hand-me-down psychological distress.
My first attempt at running away from a medical establishment failed on account of the fact I just pretended to be asleep in the back seat of a car. I made the very junior mistake of thinking doctors and parents, like the T. Rex in Jurassic Park, have a visual system based on movement. This is perfectly inaccurate. I was only six and I got the tetanus needle. Such is life.
Your parents prescribe a set of dimensions in which you are to live. They govern the most trivial things and are the foundation for the most meaningful. And one day your parents are gone, superseded by this strange new world in which they are fallible, utterly human creatures. You have seen how the magic trick works.
October 12, 2019
I read 100 Years of Dirt last month, and I’m still trying to make up my mind about it! This memoir, written by Australian journalist Rick Morton, details Morton’s family’s struggle with tragedy, addiction and poverty. It is an unflinching memoir in which the mother is a hero who is never rewarded. It is a meditation on the anger, fear of others and an obsession with real and imagined borders. Yet it is also a testimony to the strength of familial love and endurance.
This book is really short, which I thought meant I would breeze through it, but it’s not really a breezy kind of book. Morton takes the reader through a contemplation on poverty, class, addiction and loss, interspersed with dry, witty humour. I thought the issues raised in this book were thought-provoking, and Morton’s story of his family’s struggles was both heartbreaking and inspiring. I struggled a little with the writing style – Morton doesn’t include a lot of detail, and the narrative jumps around without much context or scene setting, which meant that I never really felt like I was immersed in the story. It felt a little like Tara Westover’s Educated, but didn’t have the same richness of language or detail, and I struggled to empathise with the themes as a result. I think because I mostly read fiction, I was looking for a storyline in this book, but it’s just not that type of book.
Having said that, I finished this one a few weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it. The comment on poverty and its ongoing, cyclical effects really opened my eyes, and I’m really grateful for the fact that Morton has told his story to the world (especially his mum’s story) so that people coming from a place of privilege (like me) can continue to be educated on viewpoints that are outside our own experience. I love that memoirs like this one seek to educate and enlighten, rather than just entertain the reader.
www.instagram.com/katie.reads.things
This book is really short, which I thought meant I would breeze through it, but it’s not really a breezy kind of book. Morton takes the reader through a contemplation on poverty, class, addiction and loss, interspersed with dry, witty humour. I thought the issues raised in this book were thought-provoking, and Morton’s story of his family’s struggles was both heartbreaking and inspiring. I struggled a little with the writing style – Morton doesn’t include a lot of detail, and the narrative jumps around without much context or scene setting, which meant that I never really felt like I was immersed in the story. It felt a little like Tara Westover’s Educated, but didn’t have the same richness of language or detail, and I struggled to empathise with the themes as a result. I think because I mostly read fiction, I was looking for a storyline in this book, but it’s just not that type of book.
Having said that, I finished this one a few weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it. The comment on poverty and its ongoing, cyclical effects really opened my eyes, and I’m really grateful for the fact that Morton has told his story to the world (especially his mum’s story) so that people coming from a place of privilege (like me) can continue to be educated on viewpoints that are outside our own experience. I love that memoirs like this one seek to educate and enlighten, rather than just entertain the reader.
www.instagram.com/katie.reads.things
December 28, 2019
A profoundly important memoir!
The Australian journalist Rick Morton’s writing is so powerfully thought-provoking I will reread this book over the coming days.
The memoir begins with the family history of the Morton’s, at one time Queensland’s biggest cattle property owners. The trials, tribulations, misogyny, brutality and hardship of living off the land is described in a no fuss, no ‘woe-is-me’ way. It is interesting, intriguing and eye-opening.
The second half, however, created an explosion of thoughts ...much of which I will be mulling over for some time to come. The impact of poverty, identity (many versions), family, abuse (various), welfare, education, mental health and happiness to list some; are questions society should be asking. His writing provided some laughs, some self-deprecation, some black humour but 100% authenticity in challenging the status quo.
This would be an excellent Senior English text - what a privilege it would be to bring this important work, quality of writing, literary techniques and themes to young people’s minds.
The Australian journalist Rick Morton’s writing is so powerfully thought-provoking I will reread this book over the coming days.
The memoir begins with the family history of the Morton’s, at one time Queensland’s biggest cattle property owners. The trials, tribulations, misogyny, brutality and hardship of living off the land is described in a no fuss, no ‘woe-is-me’ way. It is interesting, intriguing and eye-opening.
The second half, however, created an explosion of thoughts ...much of which I will be mulling over for some time to come. The impact of poverty, identity (many versions), family, abuse (various), welfare, education, mental health and happiness to list some; are questions society should be asking. His writing provided some laughs, some self-deprecation, some black humour but 100% authenticity in challenging the status quo.
This would be an excellent Senior English text - what a privilege it would be to bring this important work, quality of writing, literary techniques and themes to young people’s minds.
August 10, 2019
It’s my year of reading Australian journalists memoirs! This is another great read - well not do great as Rick Morton’s life has been harrowing. As the grandson of one of Australia’s farming royalty you would of expected a life of wealth and comfort. But the opposite ensues as his father abandons his mother and three children and they scrape together an existence. It’s a story of love and extreme despair and an escape of sorts. His observations are so different to the average person. Made me take a good long hard look at my privileged life and be very thankful
January 31, 2019
This was a great analysis of the impact of poverty in Australia. My only wish is that there was more about Morton's extraordinary life story in it, it leans quite heavily on the social analysis in many sections and only skims the memoir parts.
December 30, 2019
This is not a “page turner” but it is an important book to read. While writing about his own life experiences Rick Morton manages to capture not only what it’s like to be poor but the social and systemic consequences of that. So many people who are poor face Catch 22 situations on a regular basis. Survival is a constant struggle. Politicians and decision makers ought to read this book. The most powerful people in society can often have no idea or understanding how their well intentioned actions impact on others.
September 4, 2021
Pretty confronting read, though I was able to empathise with some of Rick's journey, the escape out of poverty that didn't really feel like poverty at the time because of the sacrifice of a mother. A very brave and powerful message it gave me, I can't fathom the strength Rick must have had to muster to write this book. I listened to his narration on audiobook, and to go through it again, such strength.
January 26, 2021
2 1/2 stars. Sad story covering lots of subjects
January 20, 2019
One I'll be thinking about for a while. After doing my own family history and seeing how quickly past generations fortunes can change, I've been aware, for a while, of my own privilege. Having two accepting and stable parents and grandparents who brought me up and striving myself to provide that for my own children, after being thrown a few of life's furphys, is not always guaranteed to be possible.
Poverty is so insidious.
Dysfunction can be rife in families and the effects carry on in generations.
Love Rick Morton's clarity in writing about these family and social issues that are important to all of us and told with such candour in relation to his own family.
I'll be looking out for more of his writing.
Poverty is so insidious.
Dysfunction can be rife in families and the effects carry on in generations.
Love Rick Morton's clarity in writing about these family and social issues that are important to all of us and told with such candour in relation to his own family.
I'll be looking out for more of his writing.
August 7, 2018
If you read this book and don't identify with any of the writer's feelings or situations, you are very lucky. It paints a compelling picture of life that has been a struggle throughout. The research into mental health is deep and educational, while still being an entertaining read.
Very well written, as would be expected from this award-winning journalist, with warmth, humour and ultimately, hope. Read this book. You will emerge slightly dazed and with a new perspective on much of life.
Very well written, as would be expected from this award-winning journalist, with warmth, humour and ultimately, hope. Read this book. You will emerge slightly dazed and with a new perspective on much of life.
May 23, 2021
I know this is a valuable book which deserved its awards and recognition. The family story of inter generational trauma, violent family life, rural poverty and lack of options, prison, drug taking and the effects of all these on the author’s life is powerfully told. The mother’s role is especially significant. However I found the telling of it reflected a journalist at work, with events, facts, changing places and times, left me a bit distant from the actual real life story .
June 23, 2019
Loved it. Essential reading if you want to understand how life works for people outside the middle class bubble. Also sheets home the insidious damage of homophobia. Thanks Rick Morton for bridging a massive gap of understanding.
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