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Darwin is a survivor, you have to give it that. Razed to the ground four times in its short history, it has picked itself up out of the debris to not only rebuild but grow…Darwin has known catastrophes and resurrections; it has endured misconceived projects and birthed visionaries. To know Darwin, to know its soul, you have to listen to it, soak in it, taste it. This is a book about the textures, colours, sounds, and frontier stories of Darwin, Australia's smallest and least-known capital city. Darwin is a place that has to be felt to be known. Readers will sense the heat, smell the odours, hear the birds and the frogs, encounter the mosquitoes, fathom racial politics, and learn how the moon-base that is Darwin is kept alive. They will understand that Darwin is a military garrison and a portal into Australia's possible futures. In a new postscript, Tess Lea suggests how Darwin might deliver lessons for living under the climatically assaulting and culturally uncomfortable times of the Anthropocene.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 22, 2025
Named after the man who theorised evolution, Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory. It was founded in 1869 by South Australia’s Survey-General, George Goyder. With the Larrakia people having been in the region since time immemorial, Darwin quickly became a multicultural city, with a particularly strong Chinese presence. Darwin is also a resilient city, having been destroyed four times since its founding—thrice by cyclone (1897, 1937, 1974) and once by war, when the Japanese attacked in 1942. Its tropical climate is tough, yet it is strategically located. Today, it disguises the reality that Darwin is a garrison city for the American Empire.
The book is discombobulatorily structured, jumping unchronologically between eras and topics. The origins of the city are consequently buried deep within the book. The book is full of unnecessarily ornate and elaborate vocabulary, which hides the rather superficial nature of the book’s contents. At only 250 pages, its factual substance would barely have made it to 100 pages if such vocabulary were stripped. Additionally, pages were wasted on tangents to the narrative. For instance, a fifteen-page sojourn follows mosquitoes in Darwin’s environs. Although mosquitoes influenced urban design, an overview of the mosquito itself in an already short book was out of place. This occurs a few times throughout the book.
I recently moved to Darwin for a secondment. It is the most unique of Australia’s capital cities in terms of culture and climate. I am currently writing this review as Cyclone Fina is tearing through the city. There shouldn’t be any casualties, as the city seems to have learnt the construction and procedural lessons of the past. However, it is not the weather that threatens the city in the long run; it is America’s military presence. Darwin is a pivotal cog in America’s forward posturing into Asia. If war breaks out between America and China over Taiwan, Darwin will almost certainly be a target for Chinese missiles. Let’s hope it never comes to that.
The book is discombobulatorily structured, jumping unchronologically between eras and topics. The origins of the city are consequently buried deep within the book. The book is full of unnecessarily ornate and elaborate vocabulary, which hides the rather superficial nature of the book’s contents. At only 250 pages, its factual substance would barely have made it to 100 pages if such vocabulary were stripped. Additionally, pages were wasted on tangents to the narrative. For instance, a fifteen-page sojourn follows mosquitoes in Darwin’s environs. Although mosquitoes influenced urban design, an overview of the mosquito itself in an already short book was out of place. This occurs a few times throughout the book.
I recently moved to Darwin for a secondment. It is the most unique of Australia’s capital cities in terms of culture and climate. I am currently writing this review as Cyclone Fina is tearing through the city. There shouldn’t be any casualties, as the city seems to have learnt the construction and procedural lessons of the past. However, it is not the weather that threatens the city in the long run; it is America’s military presence. Darwin is a pivotal cog in America’s forward posturing into Asia. If war breaks out between America and China over Taiwan, Darwin will almost certainly be a target for Chinese missiles. Let’s hope it never comes to that.
September 29, 2014
My first encounter with the city of Darwin was fleeting – we arrived on The Ghan in the late afternoon and left early the next morning for Litchfield National Park . I slept badly, my window over Mitchell St provided access to the full-on party raging in nearby bars on a Tuesday night. The last drinker downed tools at around 4.30 am.
Our tour leader the next day was a woman in her 40’s. She gave us a potted history of Darwin as we drove down the Stuart Highway. What I remember from her summary is this…”Darwin is a highly gendered town with a ratio of 6 males to every female at certain times of the year…it has one of the highest sexual assault rates against women in the country…the military have a very strong presence in the area…’the build-up’ (waiting for the wet season) is a test for most people…people don’t stick around.” She had lasted in Darwin for four years. She was a great guide. I was reading Tess Lea’s book about Darwin at the time.
Lea’s writing is cool and measured. Nicolas Rothwell (whose own writing could be described thus) say: “Her method is deliberately fragmentary: she offers up impressions, snatches of story, loosely grouped by theme: reinventions, dangers, the texture of life, the road ahead.” His article is worth reading – at the very least, for the summary of how the topic of “the city” has been written about over time. The book starts with the sound of Cyclone Tracey and ends with the roar of fighter jets. Lea says that what she was most surprised about, in the course of writing the book was “ Without doubt it’s Darwin’s role in the shifting geopolitics of the region. The militarisation of the north, including of Darwin, under everyone’s noses, is surprisingly unknown to most Australians. There is next to no comment. To borrow from WEH Stanner, who famously complained of the great Australian silence about the dispossession of Indigenous people, there is a silence about the new ‘Cold War’ brewing in the Asia–Pacific–Oceanic region and Darwin’s place in it.”
Other conflict is referenced, sometimes briefly. There are several stories about treatment of indigenous people over time that are utterly chilling. It has been a cruel place. “Federation brought the white Australia policy and dictation tests against ‘‘foreigners’’, land grabs and the removal of Aboriginal people onto missions and compounds. ‘‘The sudden violent frontier is remembered in Aboriginal English variously as ‘the killing times’, ‘the quietening times’, and ‘station times’,’’ Lea writes.” (http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/b...) “What is expressed and emphasised is the “social amnesia” and “numbed indifference” which runs as a consistent line from foundation to the present day in Darwin and the Northern Territory.” (http://www.assessthesituation.com/tag...)
Glen Speering, who wrote this last comment also said: “The bind that Darwin faces itself – between the military and the negative consequences and the inevitability and helplessness of Darwin is almost a metaphor for how Darwin and the Northern Territory views itself: somehow fiercely independent, different, unique and set aside from the rest of Australia – yet wholly dependent on the outside for its sustenance, continuance and direction in almost all areas.”
I liked this book more than Sophie Cunningham’s book of the same series (about Melbourne). Lea provided a broad canvas with which to think about Darwin. I enjoyed it particularly as I was in Darwin for much of the time of reading. I’m not sure if it would have had the same impact had I never been there but she writes well. Here’s a taste: “Its attractions are as primal as the dank smell of mould. It is the scent of freshly mown grass in the wet season, clumped in steaming piles, cut wet between downpours. Of steam rising from a hot road after a shower, the smell of dust and vaporous heat a welcome portent of more rain to come. The hint of smoke in the air hailing the dry season as surely as dragonflies darting through their hunting dance, the smoke wisps promising camping weather and bonfires. Swirls of cream, caramel port wine and crimson in soft chalk rocks, fallen from eroding cliff faces.“
Our tour leader the next day was a woman in her 40’s. She gave us a potted history of Darwin as we drove down the Stuart Highway. What I remember from her summary is this…”Darwin is a highly gendered town with a ratio of 6 males to every female at certain times of the year…it has one of the highest sexual assault rates against women in the country…the military have a very strong presence in the area…’the build-up’ (waiting for the wet season) is a test for most people…people don’t stick around.” She had lasted in Darwin for four years. She was a great guide. I was reading Tess Lea’s book about Darwin at the time.
Lea’s writing is cool and measured. Nicolas Rothwell (whose own writing could be described thus) say: “Her method is deliberately fragmentary: she offers up impressions, snatches of story, loosely grouped by theme: reinventions, dangers, the texture of life, the road ahead.” His article is worth reading – at the very least, for the summary of how the topic of “the city” has been written about over time. The book starts with the sound of Cyclone Tracey and ends with the roar of fighter jets. Lea says that what she was most surprised about, in the course of writing the book was “ Without doubt it’s Darwin’s role in the shifting geopolitics of the region. The militarisation of the north, including of Darwin, under everyone’s noses, is surprisingly unknown to most Australians. There is next to no comment. To borrow from WEH Stanner, who famously complained of the great Australian silence about the dispossession of Indigenous people, there is a silence about the new ‘Cold War’ brewing in the Asia–Pacific–Oceanic region and Darwin’s place in it.”
Other conflict is referenced, sometimes briefly. There are several stories about treatment of indigenous people over time that are utterly chilling. It has been a cruel place. “Federation brought the white Australia policy and dictation tests against ‘‘foreigners’’, land grabs and the removal of Aboriginal people onto missions and compounds. ‘‘The sudden violent frontier is remembered in Aboriginal English variously as ‘the killing times’, ‘the quietening times’, and ‘station times’,’’ Lea writes.” (http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/b...) “What is expressed and emphasised is the “social amnesia” and “numbed indifference” which runs as a consistent line from foundation to the present day in Darwin and the Northern Territory.” (http://www.assessthesituation.com/tag...)
Glen Speering, who wrote this last comment also said: “The bind that Darwin faces itself – between the military and the negative consequences and the inevitability and helplessness of Darwin is almost a metaphor for how Darwin and the Northern Territory views itself: somehow fiercely independent, different, unique and set aside from the rest of Australia – yet wholly dependent on the outside for its sustenance, continuance and direction in almost all areas.”
I liked this book more than Sophie Cunningham’s book of the same series (about Melbourne). Lea provided a broad canvas with which to think about Darwin. I enjoyed it particularly as I was in Darwin for much of the time of reading. I’m not sure if it would have had the same impact had I never been there but she writes well. Here’s a taste: “Its attractions are as primal as the dank smell of mould. It is the scent of freshly mown grass in the wet season, clumped in steaming piles, cut wet between downpours. Of steam rising from a hot road after a shower, the smell of dust and vaporous heat a welcome portent of more rain to come. The hint of smoke in the air hailing the dry season as surely as dragonflies darting through their hunting dance, the smoke wisps promising camping weather and bonfires. Swirls of cream, caramel port wine and crimson in soft chalk rocks, fallen from eroding cliff faces.“
January 27, 2024
This feels like a love letter to Darwin, and also a plea to look after this place. It addresses Darwin’s conflicting identity- reckoning with being a frontier town, grappling with a military identity and a reluctant embrace of a progressive movement. Glad I read it after living here for a while- so many names, places and references I finally understand.
August 6, 2018
I thought this book was fantastic, especially reading it while I was still in the Tropical City of Darwin, Australia. It truly, for me, captured what's most compelling about this community in a way that was more thematic and evocative rather than chronological and exhaustive. Read this book if you want a sense of the place and how people live there.
July 19, 2025
It was thought provoking however somewhat difficult to follow. I had to reread sections to keep track of what was happening.
March 6, 2021
There is a series of books out in which the author describes the city he/she was born in or lived in. I have read almost the whole of this series with regards to Australian cities. I enjoyed them all. This one though by Tess Lea is exceptional. You have to have lived in Darwin and have a love for a city to be able to describe it like the author does.
Darwin has always intrigued me and I have enjoyed every visit there. The finer points that gave me food for thought and reflection, were all explained by Tess. The writing style is very fluent, easy going and yet it has depth and displays the amount of research that the author put into it.
I'll be in Darwin again this year, a few external conditions permitting and I will see it again with a fresh look. Tess also has written about life there not only now and then, but has mentioned the " unsavoury " aspects of living in and around Darwin as well.
The bombing of Darwin by our friendly Japanese visitors brought out the best and the worst in the residents, as did cyclon Tracy.It all got a mention and made the book more complete and readable. A great effort and an enjoyable book.
Darwin has always intrigued me and I have enjoyed every visit there. The finer points that gave me food for thought and reflection, were all explained by Tess. The writing style is very fluent, easy going and yet it has depth and displays the amount of research that the author put into it.
I'll be in Darwin again this year, a few external conditions permitting and I will see it again with a fresh look. Tess also has written about life there not only now and then, but has mentioned the " unsavoury " aspects of living in and around Darwin as well.
The bombing of Darwin by our friendly Japanese visitors brought out the best and the worst in the residents, as did cyclon Tracy.It all got a mention and made the book more complete and readable. A great effort and an enjoyable book.
July 19, 2018
Darwin is an intriguing place - I've always thought as much even before my one and only visit in 2010. It's closer to Asia than any other part of Australia, for one, and nearly as distant from Canberra as Perth. It's Australia's most Aboriginal city by a long-shot. And, otherwise, has a unique ethnic mix. Of course it's also been detroyed a couple of times and has spent much of its life as a garrison town - even when unacknowledged. Some of this I knew before reading Tess Lea's lovingly-written book, some I learned here. If I've one criticism, and it's a small one, I feel like it might have been more tightly presented, like she may have struggled a bit around just how to tell all the stories she wanted to tell.
June 15, 2024
With my planning on visiting Darwin, I sought out books on Darwin, both non-fiction and fiction. Coming across this series of books on capital cities of Australia I thought it would give me a true account of Darwin, its people, the politics and social framework in comparison to any tourist brochures.
This book did that. I read some of it before I went and the remainder after my return. I could then identify with my own experience and associate with it.
An interesting and insightful read. I would recommend it to anyone living there as well as those intending to visit as Tess Lea had lived there so was able to draw on this in her writing of this unique town.
This book did that. I read some of it before I went and the remainder after my return. I could then identify with my own experience and associate with it.
An interesting and insightful read. I would recommend it to anyone living there as well as those intending to visit as Tess Lea had lived there so was able to draw on this in her writing of this unique town.
March 5, 2018
A great book about a very special place. Gives you a taste of the tropical heat, the storms, the people. And asks some very good questions about city planning, politics, American military bases on Australian soil, and other priorities, without giving an answer, but still spelling out the obvious. Good read.
February 23, 2020
A great book to read before or during a trip to the Top End, Darwin gives an overview of the city's history and recent issues as well as the author's own personal experiences of this vibrant city which is closer to Asia than it is Sydney. Compressing a complex history covering centuries into 300 pages often results in fragmented story telling and a sometimes superficial treatment of issues.
October 25, 2020
A bit all over the place in terms of the writing and sequencing. Not very enjoyable to read. But learned some interesting things about Darwin, and felt strongly some of her descriptions about Darwin.
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August 19, 2015Was great to read this book while we were visiting Darwin and the Top End a month or so ago.
April 9, 2017
Darwin is the only Australian capital city I’ve never visited, but whereas Peter Timms’ book In Search of Hobart in the same New South City Series made me want to pack up and move to Tassie overnight, Tess Lea’s impressionistic survey of Darwin makes me want to avoid it. I just couldn’t put up with the weather:
Well, of course, tourists don’t have to visit during the build-up or the monsoon. But Lea gives the impression that there are social disadvantages to Darwin too:
And this:
And then there’s the cane toads and mosquitoes, urban crocodiles, and swimming pools that are unusually shallow, which means it warms up more readily in the build-up heat to a pea soup temperature, just when people are mad keen to escape the seething heat. Nothing lasts long: even the buildings corrode from within in the moist salty air, which is why it’s too expensive to protect what remains of the city’s heritage buildings.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/04/09/d...
… Darwin is a place where the imported seasonal markers of summer, autumn, winter and spring have no meaning. Locally, people note two main seasons: ‘the Wet’, a brief but intense monsoonal deluge from January through to March; and ‘the Dry’, a long drought extending from April through to September. By December people are willing storms to break the searing heat and rising humidity that precedes the Wet. Locals call this bridge period ‘the build-up’, a reference both to the climbing humidity and temperatures, and the mounting stress of the sticky, sapping heat. Alternative names are mango madness, the silly season, even the suicide season.
It is as if the body registers as a psychic assault the lowering air pressure from thunderstorms brewing over warm water. […]
You are in a stifling sauna, not a romance novel of languid afternoons under the palms. Your brain seems to be melting and tempers flare; irritability spreads from itching skin to the whole world. Only the fish, mozzies, fleas and cattle ticks are happy, breeding faster in the steaming heat. (p. 13)
Well, of course, tourists don’t have to visit during the build-up or the monsoon. But Lea gives the impression that there are social disadvantages to Darwin too:
… for young people Darwin continues to have the attractions and the downsides of a large country town. ‘You endure the heat, you get drunk. If you stay, you can have a baby and maybe get a home loan. It’s better to get out,’ one young man told me, briefly back home for his studies ‘down south’. It can feel suffocating. (p.183)
And this:
‘It becomes very repetitive in Darwin after a while,’ she told me. ‘There’s a strong culture of drinking and drug-taking. Everyone in Darwin’s smoked weed or drunk crazy amounts of alcohol by age fifteen. It’s more expected there, more accepted.’ (p. 183)
And then there’s the cane toads and mosquitoes, urban crocodiles, and swimming pools that are unusually shallow, which means it warms up more readily in the build-up heat to a pea soup temperature, just when people are mad keen to escape the seething heat. Nothing lasts long: even the buildings corrode from within in the moist salty air, which is why it’s too expensive to protect what remains of the city’s heritage buildings.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/04/09/d...
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews