Praiseworthy
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
The new novel from the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Australian author Alexis Wright.
Praiseworthy is an epic set in the north of Australia, told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned. In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scouring the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her Aboriginal/Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful. This is a novel which pushes allegory and language to its limits, a cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage, and a fable for the end of days.
'Monumental... calls to mind the work of Thomas Bernhard or the quiet rage of Dostoyevsky... Praiseworthy blew me away.' – Australian Book Review
Praise for Alexis Wright:
‘The writing is the best in the country, some of the best in the world; we call to mind Alexis Wright when they talk about our country’s great literary voice.’ — Tara June Winch
‘I’m awed by the range, experiment and political intelligence of [Alexis Wright’s] work, from fiction such as Carpentaria and The Swan Book, to her “collective memoir” of an Aboriginal elder in Tracker. As essayist, activist, novelist and oral historian she is vital on the subject of land and people.’ — Robert Macfarlane, New York Times Book Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This freewheeling and heartbreaking masterpiece from Aboriginal Australian author Wright (Carpenteria) brims with the magic of myth and the painful realities of present-day climate change. An "ochre-coloured haze" has descended on the remote town of Praiseworthy, Australia, "claiming ultimate sovereignty of the flatlands" and portending ecological disaster. A man variously known as Widespread, Planet, and Cause Man Steel comes up with a harebrained and quixotic plan for surviving the future. Based on a dream he once had, it involves an "empire" of "super-charged donkeys that were fit for a super-charged climate." Meanwhile, Widespread's elder son, Aboriginal Sovereignty, who's distraught after having been accused of raping the underage girl he's in love with (she's only 18 months younger), considers suicide. Widespread's younger son, Tommyhawk, whom his father calls a "born fascist," hopes his brother follows through on his plan and thereby avoid a public trial that would upset Tommyhawk's desire to assimilate into white society. Rounding out the cast is Dance Steel, Widespread's wife, who's "like a haven for butterflies or moths" because she speaks "the moths' frequency, a language of millennia which she had learnt in dreams which were only ever about butterflies and moths." At once lush and relentless, Wright's looping tale combines magical realism, absurdism, and maximalism in a rich depiction of contemporary Aboriginal life. This is unforgettable.
