An overworked 1970s Black activist finds peace in a traditional healing ceremony. Velma Henry is an activist and organiser. It's the 1970s and she's involved in many progressive causes: Black rights, women's rights, gay rights. As a leftist, she veers towards Marxist economics. Big business is taking the world to hell in a hand basket. She should know: she works as a computer programmer at a chemical plant called Transchemical that has a dodgy environmental record. The pressures on her life – both personal and political – have had their toll. Her husband Obie has been cheating on her and, despite years of work, the movements she has given her heart and soul to have achieved only marginal successes. On the brink of a nervous breakdown, she self harms and then attempts suicide. In a state of utter collapse, she is brought to a community centre in Claybourne, Georgia. It is here that the healer Minnie Ransom works to bring Velma back from the brink. Consulting with her “spirit guide”, an imaginary woman named Old Wife, the two engage in a sassy streetwise language when discussing how to treat Velma. Old Wife is a “haint”, a ghost or spirit. These passages in the novel have an earthy, Chaucerian tone, full of laughter and ribald jokes. The narrative of The Salt Eaters is non-linear. The story jumps back and forth in time and has a hallucinatory quality. Scenes appear and dissolve, describing meetings and protests, interactions between colleagues and lovers. The book has no plot and is almost totally impressionistic. What it does vividly convey is the atmosphere of hope and despair during the burgeoning Civil Rights period in America. This is the origin of “woke” culture, a term first used in 1962 by African-American novelist William Melvin Kelley. Velma's treatment by Minnie and her spirit guide, Old Wife, also has a contemporary analogy in the self-care movement of today. Some readers may find the lack of a linear plot discombobulating. The novel turns in on itself in a self-contained loop. It's evocative and dreamy, resisting conventional forms and rules. Despite this, Toni Cade Bambara's prose is moreish and addictive. Readers who submit will find much to reward in this unique piece of fiction. The Salt Eaters, by Toni Cade Bambara. Published by Penguin Modern Classics. $22.99 A cautionary tale about power unchecked. From 1968 to 1995, Colin Manock was South Australia's chief forensic pathologist. During that time, he was there at every crime scene where an autopsy was required. His evidence helped secure some 400 criminal convictions. There was only one problem. A lot of his work as a pathologist was considered substandard. He was also lacking in qualifications, having no training in histopathology – the practice of taking tissue samples from various organs to discern more complex signs of disease or injury. In 1968, Manock had seen an advertisement for the director of pathology at South Australia's institute of Medical and Veterinary Science. The institute was eager to fill the position, and with no other promising candidates, Manock was accepted, with the hope that he would undertake further training. He didn't. Manock's English accent (he emigrated from the UK), self-possession and refusal to concede mistakes meant his evidence was often accepted without demur. But as his work has come to be reviewed over the years, deficiencies have become obvious. In the handful of cases author Drew Rooke examines in A Witness of Fact, many have spent decades in prison due in large part to questionable forensic work. Some have had their convictions entirely overturned. Drew Rooke has written a fascinating, easy-to-read biography of a strange, disturbing character. The middle sections concentrate on a number of cases and read like the best of true crime – enigmas to be solved. The book offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of giving too much power, unchecked, to one person. Clearly the work of forensic pathologists, as presented in A Witness of Fact, requires rigorous peer review before being used in courts of law. Once legal decisions have been made, lives can be ruined for decades. Or forever. Derek Bromley, who still protests his innocence of murder, has been behind bars for close to forty years. He could have walked free in the early 2000s if he'd admitted guilt, but maintains his innocence. He was convicted in large part on Manock's evidence, which has come under increasing scrutiny in the past two decades. Public interest journalism mixed with compelling true crime cases. A Witness of Fact: The Peculiar Case of Chief Forensic Pathologist Colin Manock, by Drew Rooke. Published by Scribe. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Historian Robyn Annear takes the reader on seven walks through Melbourne. Robyn Annear is well known for her pithy, always amusing histories of Melbourne, including Bearbrass and A City Lost and Found. In Adrift in Melbourne, Annear takes the reader on a perambulatory adventure through the city's major landmarks and its lesser known byways. Street corners, dead ends, crumbling buildings all have their story to tell. Not only the streets, but beneath we find an old Melbourne - “Pompeii-like” - buried underground. Old houses, fences, cellars were built over, leaving a mysterious subterranean world. Archaeological digs in the notorious Little Lon district, famous for its brothels and rough characters, show its erstwhile residents not so down at heel as once presumed. They owned, among other things, fine China and jewelry. Melbourne is not just its monuments and street grid, and Annear takes joy in its varied personalities and unusual professions: mesmerists, fortune tellers, wig makers, tooth pullers, herbalists, phrenologists, quacks and crooks. Indeed, the city is its people, the mad shopkeepers, visionary business people such as Edward Cole (famous for Cole's Book Arcade) and even the tramps who cling to the city for succour. The descriptions of Bourke Street's Job Warehouse drapery store will bring back memories for many, with its dingy, unkempt windows and notoriously querulous proprietor. Even the intrepid Annear was too scared to enter. Adrift in Melbourne is a vivid history that moves back and forth in time, from pre-invasion to now. Readers who have lived in or regularly visited Melbourne will recall places from the past: the clanging noise of Coles Cafeteria, the short lived skateboard ramps at the old Queen Victoria Hospital site, the 1980s City Square. The hilly Flagstaff Gardens, we learn, is one of the few places in Melbourne that retains its original landscape. If you want to imagine Indigenous Country before white settlement, go visit. An entertaining romp and joyous celebration of a city that keeps on giving. Adrift in Melbourne, by Robyn Annear. Text Publishing. $27.99 Review by Chris Saliba A compelling social and economic history of Tasmania's convict class that made their way to Victoria. Vandemonians were convicts originally sent to Van Dieman’s Land, later migrating to Victoria. They were an underclass much abhorred by Victorian society. Many hid their convict past – even from their own children - making up fake identities, backstories and names. The history of Victoria’s Vandemonians is one of violence, alcohol, poverty, disease, starvation, repeat court appearances and jail time. Careers in crime could be multi-generational, passed down the family tree. Children often died young, from disease, hunger or neglect. Sexual abuse of children was shockingly common. In short, the odds were stacked against ex-convicts, and they often failed to produce a lineage, making them lost to history. Historian Janet McCalman has written a sharp, intellectually bracing portrait of this doleful cohort of early Victorian settlers. Based on research from the Ships Project, McCalman presents a gallery of tough, tragic and yet resilient battlers who carved out a precarious existence in a hostile world. With its strong grasp of the economic, social and historical forces that entrench poverty and disadvantage, Vandemonians illustrates how so many of these problems are still with us today. A first class history that will surely become a classic. Vandemonians: The Repressed History of Colonial Victoria, by Janet McCalman. Published by Miegunyah Press. $39.99 Review by Chris Saliba tongerlongeter: first nations leader and tasmanian war hero, by henry reynolds and nicholas clements25/9/2021
A first class biography of a forgotten Australian war hero. Tasmania's Black War raged from the mid 1820s until its conclusion in 1832. The conflict was between the Oyster Bay – Big River clans and white settlers. There were many shocking atrocities on both sides. Initially the First Nations tribes thought the Europeans were their returned ancestors, but this reasoning came under sustained pressure as their lands were appropriated and women abducted, raped and murdered. Life became an intense struggle as food sources were dramatically reduced and comfortable resting places taken. Out of this chaos emerges the leader and war strategist Tongerlongeter. He managed to organise and maintain a dogged resistance against impossible odds, causing a general terror among the white population. Surrounded and with no other option, he and the last 25 of his people made a peace agreement. He was offered land to live on and guaranteed protection from whites. This promise was broken and he and his compatriots were sent to Flinders Island, which was rife with disease. He would die there, never seeing his homeland again. An excellent work of scholarship that chronicles in lucid detail a terrible war and acknowledges Tongerlongeter as an extraordinary fighter, one that history must remember. Tongerlongeter: First Nations Leader and Tasmanian War Hero, by Henry Reynolds and Nicholas Clements. Published by NewSouth. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba Historian Henry Reynolds examines the legal underpinnings of Australia. What are the legal foundations for Australia? How was a whole continent simply claimed by the British Crown? Was such a move even legal under international law? And what of the estimated original five hundred nations that lived on the landmass, ruled by their own laws and customs? Did they even exist, or were they no more than the flora and fauna covering the land? These and many other fundamental legal questions historian Henry Reynolds addresses in Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement. What we learn is that the British were on shaky legal ground when Australia was claimed. It was more a massive land grab than a legally binding property transfer. International law and thinking at the time bears this out. Land that was already inhabited by indigenous peoples could not be appropriated. The only option was treaty making, a practice that was already happening in America with its First Nations. The total absence of treaty making in Australia, along with the shaky legal foundations of claiming a continent as uninhabited (terra nullius), meant there was no clear pathway to negotiating with the First Nations. Official word from England was to treat the indigenous population with respect and to avoid violence. But this authority was too far away to enforce its directives and soon settlers were pushing out into First Nation territories. Violence ensued, with no legal foundation to mediate the conflict. Were Indigenous people now subjects of the British Crown, with a right to its legal protections, or could they simply be killed? (The euphemism was “disperse”, that is, groups of Indigenous people could be “dispersed” by shooting.) Media reporting and letters at the time refers to the progress of this frontier as warfare. As Henry Reynolds maintains, no one at the time was under any illusion as to what was happening. Fast forward to the National Constitutional Convention in 2017 and its landmark Uluru Statement from the Heart, which declares sovereignty has never been ceded or extinguished. Truth-Telling demonstrates that so much more work needs to be done, on treaty making and the recognition of Australia's frontier wars, among other things. Henry Reynolds must surely be one of Australia's most penetrating historians, with his deep reading of the contemporary literature on our country's early years. His writing is intellectually honest and brave. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, Truth-Telling is deeply considered and researched, presenting some of the most serious issues facing Australia today. Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement, by Henry Reynolds. Published by New South. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba An unforgettable memoir of growing up in Nazi Germany. First published in Germany in 1966, The Broken House is a memoir of growing up in Nazi Germany. Born in 1919, novelist and journalist Horst Kruger was fourteen when Hitler came to power. He was part of a resistance movement, escaped serious punishment and eventually was conscripted into the German army. When all was lost, he surrendered prematurely to the Americans and gave them vital coordinates, helping close down a battlefront early. Kruger looks back to his youth in Eichkamp, Berlin, to try and figure out what the appeal of Hitler was. The enigma of the century, why was Hitler so popular, how did he get away with the murder of six million Jews? The irony, as he writes it, is that the sentimental, suburban, middle-class Germans who adored Hitler were not paid up Nazi members. Although in one passage Kruger describes his mother buying him a “pretty” swastika to put on his bicycle. It was this broad cohort of non-political Germans, Kruger maintains, who created Hitler. Without them Hitler couldn’t have existed. Indeed, it’s easy to see how respectable middle-class Germans turned a blind eye to the looming Holocaust. Jewish neighbours were disappearing left, right and centre, yet no alarm bells went off. People merely shrugged their shoulders. In other chapters Kruger describes the strange middle class preoccupation with respectability. When his sister commits suicide, what seems more important, to his mother at least, is that appearances are kept up. They lie to the neighbours about her sudden and dramatic ambulance journey and Mrs Kruger is relieved that she died a virgin, her sacredness intact. Perhaps one of the most disturbing and compelling chapters is the description of the trials for war crimes. A parade of unremarkable men – doctors, academics, public servants – are assembled in court. A seemingly innocuous bunch. It’s hard to put these respectable images next to the hideous crimes they performed. A perfect example of Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil. For anyone trying to understand this incomprehensible period of history, The Broken House offers the feel, smell and mood of a Germany that thinks itself innocent, having emerged from the humiliations of the 1918 Versaille Treaty. Hitler offers the country self-esteem, hope and a bright future. But anti-semitism is everywhere around these simple German folk. It’s essential to Hitler’s madness. Failure to see these wrongs will form a large part of Germany’s downfall. For some reason this fascinating time capsule has only recently been re-discovered in Germany, republished in 2019. It appears now in English for the first time. With the novelist’s gift for narrative, lyrical description and compelling character studies, Horst Kruger’s memoir is both aesthetically pleasing and of deep historical value. The Broken House: Growing Up Under Hitler, by Horst Kruger. Published by Jonathan Cape. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba A pithy, entertaining short history of China. Writer and sinologist Linda Jaivin takes the reader on a speedy, drive-through history of China, starting with Stone Age Peking Man (homo erectus pekinensis) eking out a living along the Yellow River's fertile alluvial plain, through millennia of dynastic rule – the Zhou, the Qin, the Hang etc. – right up to the last great dynasty, the Qing. Incursions from the British (the humiliating Opium Wars) and the Japanese (the Rape of Nanking) during the 20th century caused great instability and civil war. Mao Zedong and the Communist Party would eventually win, only for China to be further plunged into turmoil, with famines and the so-called Cultural Revolution causing extraordinary mayhem and disorder. Jaivin finally documents the economic rise of China in the post-Mao era and ends with a word of caution about the repressive, authoritarian government of President Xi Jinping, with its cult of personality. Linda Jaivin writes a snappy history, thronged with a teeming cast of great personalities. Special attention is paid to women's contribution, through sketches of female warriors, politicians, scientists, radicals and trailblazers. For those seeking perspective on this complex and multifaceted society, The Shortest History of China is instructive and enjoyable. The Shortest History of China, by Linda Jaivin. Published by Black Inc. $24.99 Review by Chris Saliba Five biographies of pioneering women who pushed boundaries and changed the world forever. The title of this book, Square Haunting, is a bit of a misnomer. Taken from Virginia Woolf's 1927 essay “Street Haunting”, about the ethereal pleasures of walking London's city streets, Francesca Wade's debut concentrates on pioneering women who broke boundaries. Mecklenburgh Square is the location where five extraordinary women – Hilda Doolittle, Dorothy L. Sayers, Jane Ellen Harrison, Eileen Power and Virginia Woolf – lived at one time or another. The five didn't work together in a concerted cultural effort, although there were informal links and much mutual admiration. Mecklenburgh Square between the two world wars was an easy going place where the rent was cheap, perfect for society's fringe dwellers, intellectuals and artists. Landladies didn't ask too many probing questions and independently minded women could attain that most cherished “room of one's own”, rather than the typical destiny of marriage, children and putting husband first. The five biographies that are the core of Square Haunting centre on the often soul destroying difficulties of trying to establish a career in a male dominated world. Well credentialed and talented women were passed over time and time again in favour of mediocre but well connected men. The anthropologist, Jane Ellen Harrison, is a good case in point. She was continually denied university roles based solely on her gender. The poet Hilda Doolittle and crime writer Dorothy L. Sayers would both write about the importance of female independence and being equal partners in marriage. Historian Eileen Power wrote books that highlighted the important, but overlooked, roles women had played in the past. She was also a passionate pacifist. Virginia Woolf needs no introduction. Wade concentrates on Woolf's feminist writings and her final, tortured months at Mecklenburgh Square as Hitler's bombs devastated the city. Francesca Wade has written an inspiring history of the decades between the wars, through the prism of five brilliant writers and activists. Inspiring because it shows how tenacity and courage, sometimes sacrifice, can bring forth change. Hilda Doolittle, Dorothy L. Sayers, Jane Ellen Harrison, Eileen Power and Virginia Woolf all laid the path for future generations and the freedoms we enjoy today. Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars, by Francesca Wade. Published by Bloomsbury. $22.99 Review by Chris Saliba A highly readable history of modern China that will answer many questions about the country's development and its current political challenges. Jonathan Fenby's sweeping history of China covers the modern period from 1850 right up to today, finishing with Xi Jinping (updated in 2019 for the third edition). The book starts by chronicling the last days of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), which featured prominent figures such as the Empress Dowager Cixi who was the power behind the throne for close to five decades. Upon the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the country was run by a disparate group of warlords until civil war broke out between the Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-Shek, and Mao Zedong's Communists. In 1949, the People's Republic of China was declared. Mao's rule, from 1949 to 1976, would see some of the worst crimes against humanity, with millions killed due to unnecessary famine and ideological warfare. Mao's Cultural Revolution tipped China into a veritable state of madness. Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping would start to open up the country's economy and herald a new era of rising wealth. Despite liberalising trade and lifting living standards, politically China remains authoritarian. Many Western thinkers have presumed that China would follow the West into democratic government due to its embrace of capitalism, but this hasn't happened. China's last 170 years have been turbulent, violent and full of terrible suffering for its people. The humiliations it suffered at the hands of the Japanese and Western powers has left its indelible mark on the nation's psyche. Descriptions of the Nanking Massacre are beyond horrific. Yet despite many decades of tragedy, China has managed to rise and become a formidable global power. One of the main questions the book raises is the contradiction between China's liberalised economy, which has brought much wealth, and it's autocratic government, with more and more power concentrated in the hands of Xi Jinping. This contradiction is causing much tension in Chinese society and it remains to be seen whether this is sustainable. Will public unrest breakout and destablise the country, or will China retain its repressive government? For anyone looking for a bracing recent history of China, Jonathan Fenby's brilliant book won't disappoint. The Penguin History of Modern China, by Jonathan Fenby. Published by Penguin. $35 Review by Chris Saliba |
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