God, the Devil and Me

by Alf Taylor

In this unique and highly entertaining autobiography, Alf Taylor chronicles his life growing up in the infamous New Norcia Mission, north of Perth in the fifties and sixties.

At once darkly humorous and achingly tragic, God, The Devil and Me tells of the life and desperation of the young children forced into the care of the Spanish Nuns and Brothers who ran the Mission. Their lives made up of varying degrees of cruelty and punishments, these children were the ‘little black devils’ that God and religion forgot. Written with an acerbic and brutal wit, Alf intersperses dark childhood memories with a Monty Pythonesque retelling of the Bible, in which Peter is an alcoholic and Judas is a good guy.

As a child, underfed, poorly clothed and missing his family, Alf sought refuge in the library in the company of Shakespeare and Michelangelo. He writes with joy about the camaraderie of the boys, their love of sport and their own company, but also notes that many descended into despair upon leaving. Most died early. Alf Taylor is one of the ‘lucky ones’.

Genres: Memoir

289 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2021

Reviews

[Rachel Lagdon · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest, really struggled with this for a few reasons;

I don't often read biography - more of a fiction girly so I had a hard time engaging in the first place, I dont like the small 'topic' chapter way the book was set out, as a series of mostly cronologically ordered memories to describe the past, but! I cant think of any way to better tell this so I dont know what to say...

I also quite disliked the writing style, very conversational and often verbose:
"To this day, it’s got me absolutely bamboozled as to how I got there but I did, how, don’t ask me, because i’ve asked myself the same thing question over and over again but still with no answer". Even when there were passages I felt had so much potential to be eloquent and thought provoking, I found them over explained which to me, lost the poetry of it; i felt as if there was too much tell and not enough show if that makes sense.

even tho I didn't love the writing and I don’t like the way it’s done and gone about, how else are you to read such relevant books - the people that wrote them, have had reallly hard lives and it no wonder they are not versed in the fine art of writing (to my taste thats is) but it is such a privilege to be able to read such a raw account of the atrocities that peaopls (IN MY PART PF THE WORLD) go through, and not the imagined outcome of events I usually seek out in fiction.

One of my favourite quotes comes to mind
“There were stories in the newspapers... but they were about other women, and the men who did such things were other men. None of them were the men we knew... like bad dreams dreamt by others. How awful, we would say, and they were, but they were awful without being believable.” And I for sure feel that about this book - it very hard to digest that this is a western australian story, and its not like I didn't learn about the treatment of first nations people in school - but I have never been faced with such a raw account and not the clinical facts of history lessons. It hits all the more home because I recognise everywhere Alf references.

But the proximity to me I think did not help in my engagement, I found it really difficult to pick up time and time again because I felt such dispair (almost guilt) to read it.

Despite my grievances with it, I thought it was a really important book for me to read and so I kept pushing and all up its taken me about 6 months to get through...

[Arlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me months because it’s soul destroying but somehow also very funny.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

God, the devil and me is typical memoir in that it focuses on a particular aspect of Taylor’s life, his time at New Norcia from around 7 years old to his escape as a 15-year-old. We are talking the 1950s and 60s, which is horrifying to this 50s-60s child! As he tells it, he asked his parents, on a visit to the mission, if he could stay because his brother was there. So the die was cast, but very soon he realised it had not been a good request. Although his father and brothers, and his father’s mother had all gone “through New Norcia Mission”, and had become “good Catholic[s]”, for him it was a terrible experience. His story is one of brutality – including regular use of straps and sticks to keep the children in line, a diet that consisted primarily of “sheep’s head broth”, and inappropriate clothing – and utter rejection of the children’s Indigenous language and culture.

But, God, the devil and me, is also quite different from your usual memoir. For a start, and most significantly, it’s not told chronologically. Instead, it constantly shifts around, telling various stories ranging over his time at New Norcia. On the surface, the book looks like a bunch of, often quite short, anecdotes but, these stories are connected, not so much chronologically, as thematically, with one occasion or story usually leading organically to another. The end result is an impressionistic – if Dickensian – picture of life at New Norcia, rather than a coherent life story.

For my full review, check my blog: https://whisperinggums.com/2021/11/14...

[Jen McRae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alf Taylor's memoir should be compulsory reading for all high school students, as his work connects us to a recent past that must never be forgotten and as a society we must learn from.

Told through the lens of his boyhood, Alf recalls his childhood at the New Norcia Mission in Western Australia and tells of life in rural WA as an Indigneous kid and the role devout Catholicism had in his early belief system and understanding of the world as a young boy. His loves and losses are written with raw emotion and absolute clarity. That the children were given sheep eye ball soup and sheep brains for every meals, while the mission priests ate like kings - in front of their 'charges' is beyond cruel and is one of the many confronting annecdotes Alf shares in his memoir.
God, the devil and me is a powerful truthelling of WA's Indigneous stolen generations and I hope there will be more works to follow Alf's writing.