Plains of Promise

by Alexis Wright

The 25th Anniversary Edition of a masterful novel from the only writer to have won both the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize.

In this brilliant, wide-ranging novel, Alexis Wright evokes city and outback, deepening our understanding of human ambition and failure, and making the timeless heart and soul of this country pulsate on the page.

In the 1950s Gulf Country of Queensland’s far North, black and white cultures collide in a thousand ways as Aboriginal spirituality clashes with the complex brutality of colonisation at St Dominic’s Mission. When Ivy Koopundi and her mother arrive at the Mission, they are immediately separated and Ivy’s life changes irrevocably.

Years later, Mary, a young woman who is working for a city-based Aboriginal Coalition, visits the old Mission and learns of her mother’s and grandmother’s suffering there. Mary’s return reignites community anxieties, leading the Council of Elders to again turn to their spirit world.

This stunning novel, from the only writer to win both the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize, showcases Alexis Wright’s distinctive and far-reaching talents.

Genres: Fiction, Indigenous, Australia, Historical Fiction, Novels, 20th Century, Race

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

Alexis Wright is from the Waanji people from the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Her acclaimed first novel Plains of Promise was published in 1997 by University of Queensland Press and was shortlisted in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, The Age Book of the Year, and the NSW Premier's Awards. The novel has been translated into French.

Alexis has published award-winning short stories and her other books are the anthology Take Power (Jukurrpa Books, l998), celebrating 20 years of land rights in Central Australia; and Grog War (Magabala,1997), an examination of the alcohol restrictions in Tennant Creek.

Her latest novel, Carpentaria was published by Giramondo in 2006. An epic set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland, from where her people come, the novel tells of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance. In 2007 Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Best Fiction Book, and the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA), Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year.

Biographical information from the Australia Council website.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ive been reading backwards through the novels of Indigenous Australian author Alexis Wright and have finished with her first book, Plains of Promise. It feels like a prequel to Carpentaria and The Swan Book and follows the story of Ivy and Mary who are irrevocably affected by the racist and oppressive policies of the Australian government. Stripped of their land, their families and their identities, Indigenous Australian characters attempt to navigate a new world that seems to have no place for them. The future is bleak. Set in the remote far north, Wright moves from the awful St Dominics mission to cattle stations, big coastal cities and the liminal spaces of Aboriginal spirituality. Her style is less complex than later novels and the characterisation less fragmented, making it a little easier to follow. Still, her evocation of the outback is striking and haunted. Her portrayal of the full spectrum of human experience is raw, real and unrelenting.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Aboriginal inmates thought the tree should not have been allowed to grow there on their ancestral country. It was wrong. Their spiritual ancestors grew more and more disturbed by the thirsty, greedy foreign tree intruding into the bowels of their world. The uprising fluid carried away precious nutrients; in the middle of the night they woke up gasping for air, thought they were dying, raced up through the trunk into the limbs and branches, through the tiny veins of the minute leaves and into the flowers themselves.”


It is astonishing that this is a debut novel. While more linear than Wright’s later fiction, the narrative weaves multiple storylines together, working at different layers of understanding and posing a kaleidoscopic perspective on what is fundamentally going on. Human agency and the inevitability of law are different ways of viewing the same thing. This is a tale of corruption, of Country out of sync, and of terrible consequences for the characters. It is also frequently funny. Wright doesn’t spare her characters from the worst of colonialism. Still, she chooses to focus on the people rather than what is inflicted on them, which somehow manages to make this not bleak, despite her refusal to soften reality. She also has an eye for life’s absurdities and a sense of wicked fun in showing us the pettier side of humanity. If I have a criticism here, it is that Wright tends to position all of her POV women as naive, with the omniscient narrator, complete with witty voice, contrasting to the women’s unawareness of what is happening. This is more nuanced in later novels (although the arch omniscient narrator is a Wright trademark and does add to a slightly unearthly sense).
But, as has been the case with all of Wright’s work, when I had finished, all I really wanted to do was start reading it again from the beginning.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

a really difficult read in two ways: first, the violence against women is really, really brutal. secondly, there's a good deal of indigenous religious belief woven into the novel's structure and I just don't have a strong enough grasp of (that's my shortcoming, not the novel's). a lot to work with here in terms of colonization's destructive effects on indigenous peoples and communities, past and present. just a whole lot of ugliness and unlikeable characters here, but the novel is neither of those things.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very difficult but important read. I won't say I enjoyed it because it was so heavy and I lost interest after Ivy's story ended and I couldn't care less about Eliott's story.
Nevertheless, a well written and tragic story, I loved the mythological aspects and wish there were more of them in the novel.
I recommend the movie "Rabbit proof fence" if you loved this book, it's on the same theme and beautiful as well.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good novel if you would like to learn more about the tragic history of Australia's aborigines.

[Léa]

ENFIN FINI!!!!! vraiment c’était une épreuve de le lire
la première partie = horrible, la deuxième un peu inutile et triste, la troisième j’ai bien aimé, la dernière pourquoi faire. elles se sont vu 2sec, j’aurai bien voulu un happy end, et en même temps c’était sur. mais la fin est vachement floue quand même
fin bref au moins c’est fini !!!!
par contre je pourrais lui donner une note, je n’ai pas aimé mais ça reste un récit important qui évoque des sujets importants comme le racisme et les femmes noires dans une communauté méconnue.

[Emma Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you maisie for a great read :)

[Katie Vaclavek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gut-wrenching but beautiful

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Australia's red centre, a woman is haunted by crows and driven mad by the seizure of her daughter. Ivy, the daughter, endures life at a Christian mission and is ultimately incarcerated in a mental hospital after her own daughter, Mary, is taken from her. Mary begins to work in the Aboriginal Coalition after discovering her heritage and returns to the mission that was at the centre of her mother's and grandmother's suffering. Here, Aboriginal spirituality clashes with colonial ruthlessness, and mythology mixes with reality.

Alexis Wright's Plains of Promise was a hard read. The subject matter is very dark and sad, illuminated by the stark brutality that Wright invokes. The writing style does not make for an easy, flowing read and I did find it hard going at first.

However, I am sorry to finish this book and there are a lot of strengths there. It is brilliantly creepy with the images it invokes and though much is explained, somethings are not. The prose is stunning at times – the final three pages were my highlight for what they invoked and revealed.

[Calzean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely sad story about extremely sad and sorrowful events tracing the treatment of Aboriginals over the last 2-3 generations. Christian missionaries with the ultimate power over the people in their power, sexual abuse, suicides, forced adoptions, short-term Government memories and abusive mental treatment are covered.
Equally covered and probably more startling is the Aboriginals themselves with the violent treatment of women by their men, a lack of any central body that is recognised and respected by them and the view of many of their problems can't be blamed on the Whites.
A very powerful and important book.

[Matthew Links · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexis Wright is really a writer like no other. She manages to construct tales that weave in and out of western and indigenous traditions. Plains of promise is a very dark tale that reflects 4 generations of trauma. It is hard to read at parts but worth persevering with as by the end I really felt like you had got to see and to some extent understand the intergenerational part of intergenerational trauma. Her language is so lyrical and her imagination so fluid she really is a joy to read.
Making sense of the narrative and imaginative arc is still difficult but perhaps there is a lot about the reality of colonization that just doesn’t make sense or resolve nicely. Highly recommended.

[Sharpay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel mixed about this book, I really wanted to like it but felt lost at times in long sections of descriptive text and many unlikable characters. I couldn't follow at times and was confused as to where I was in the story and why. At times it flowed really well, but at other times it felt choppy.

The story itself is important, as a perspective of the impacts of colonisation, institutionalised abuse, dispossession and the consequent generational trauma experienced by Aboriginal people in Australia. The story should also not come as a surprise to anyone reading. Perhaps the confusing, painful and unpleasant aspects I felt reading the story are entirely the point.

[SA Lillie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book by Alexis Wright I've read in the past 12 months, including The Swan Book and Carpenteria. Her writing style is beautiful and fluid, each book delving into dark eras in our black history through the guise of dreamtime narrative. Plains of Promise takes you into the Missionary era up in Carpenteria country and the combined ostracism and devastating effects of local superstition and the policy of child removal from Aboriginal families, as experienced by the family depicted in this book. Recommend it.

[Mallee Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ivy and her mother are sent to St Dominic's after her mother protects Ivy from an assault by one of the men working on the station where she works. Once they arrive at the mission, Ivy is taken away from her mother because she is mixed blood, with the belief she'll become "white" while her distraught mother sets fire to herself.

This is a sad but realistic novel about life in outback Australia for Aboriginals under the suppression of the church and government seen through the eyes of Ivy and later through her daughter, Mary.

[Feli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly and deeply moving! One of those stories that change the way you look at the world. Ivy and the Koopundi women's fate, representative for the suffering of several generations in the due course of colonialism and its aftermath, will stay with me, always!

[Noah Melser · Rating 5 out of 5]

A moving story focused on mission life and its lasting impact on indigenous people. Unlike 'Carpentaria', where Wright's focus is broad, here she stays on a single story and it works better. Occasionally too heavy handed, her writing is nonetheless excellent and characters have great depth.

[Kt]

Did not finish

I wanted to love this because the message behind the plot is so important and the Gulf country where it is set is one of my favourite places in Australia and holds a very special place in my heart; but the writing was just too hard going for me and could not hold my interest.

[Claire Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a brilliant book but very hard to read. I couldn't say I enjoyed it but it was brilliantly written, very evocative and lyrical but also tragic.

[CLAUDIA.B · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve been slowly reading through this. I don’t rate it. Slow read. Yes, it covers heart wrenching themes. I don’t like the author and their writing personally. Slow and boring read.

[Léonie Boucher · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai aimé ma lecture du premier roman d'Alexis Wright, même si ce n'est pas un roman facile à lire, en raison du sujet qui heurte les sensibilités, mais aussi à cause du chaos dans le fil narratif qui s'échelonne sur 383 pages.
À savoir, pour contextualiser un peu la lecture, que les Aborigènes sont considérés comme de la faune et de la flore jusqu'en 1967 en Australie. Les peuples autochtones/Premiers peuples en Australie se nomment les Aborigènes, mais dans un contexte américain ce terme est considéré comme péjoratif.
C'est une narration polyphonique qui prend en charge le récit et qui commente avec ironie et sarcasme les horreurs vécues par des dizaines de milliers d'enfants aborigènes qui ont été enlevés à leurs familles dans l'espoir de les assimiler et d'en faire des Blancs. Même le titre annonce ce sarcasme, car c'est plutôt le désespoir qui est relaté dans ce roman : violences envers les femmes, transmission intergénérationnelle difficile, tentatives d'assimilation de la part du gouvernement, etc. En nous montrant des moments marquants de vie de plusieurs Aborigènes, à travers une chronologie chaotique, la narration opère une fictionnalisation historique. Le roman met en scène des moments importants de l’histoire des Aborigènes d’Australie. durant la deuxième moitié du XXème siècle. Chaque partie du livre correspond à des changements de politiques gouvernementales.'avis incomplet'

 

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about inhumanity and the journey to discovery, but not quite finding it. I loved how from the start of the story to the very end the lives of all the characters intermingle, we get to follow what happens to them and who they become. I was able to learn a lot about what happened to these aboriginals in the gulf country and how they were treated in broad daylight. the natural flow of the writing made it pretty easy for me to understand and the depication of the landscape made it evocative for me, I love to be able to imagine where the story is set :)

[Johanne Tanguay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Les conséquences de la colonisation sur les Aborigènes survivants des réserves et des missions religieuses en Australie. Dur, poignant, triste, le récit couvre quatre générations de femmes victimes d’être nées dans ce pays, à ce moment. Une période noire de l’histoire se perpétuant même de nos jours, qui se doit d’être connu, ne serait-ce que pour saisir une fraction de l’horreur imposée sur des peuples vulnérables.

[Maria Falzon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a beautifully portrayed, heartbreaking story.

A fair warning, this is worth the read, but it is a hard read. Nightmarish abuse, cruelty, ignorance, and anger litter the pages. The truth that is sifted in makes this a truly difficult book to get through even despite the marvellous way it is written.

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not an "enjoyable" book to read, as it is very bleak, depressing and violent, but gives a good insight into the effects of colonisation on Indigenous people. Everyone was affected in some way.

[Bialey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant but too depressing for me, so I stopped reading about a third of the way through.

[Isla · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful writing and a rich and insightful story

[Aj · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot more grounded in reality than The Swan Book, with still some fantastical elements.

[Amalia Jane Mills]

Every Aussie should read this

[Jane Summers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to eaudiobook

[Jane · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read 50% of this book so far and all it talks about is about this guy Elliot wandering the desert and about this Chinaman named Pilot. There’s hardly been any mention of Ivy, except for a few pages. From the reviews and the blurb of the book I got the impression that this book was all about the suffering Ivy and her mother endured on St Dominic’s mission. And more particularly about the suffering they endured at having to give their children up. So far this book has been a big let down.