Tears of Strangers
The extraordinary powerful family story that reckons with the legacy of Australia's history from award-winning journalist and author of Talking To My Country
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Where do I belong? Who am I? The blood of my fathers links me to a much older place and time. I've walked in the footprints of my ancestors: I've sat by the riverbank at night and imagined them around me. I am all that they have made me.
Journalist Stan Grant was born in 1963, a son of the Wiradjuri people. By the early sixties these once proud warriors were scattered onto mission camps and the fringes of rural towns. Growing up a Wiradjuri, a tribe ravaged by alcoholism, poverty, abuse and neglect, the young Stan was more familiar with broken glass and mangy dogs than with dot paintings and corroborees.
Yet, while acknowledging the cliched bleakness that was part of his childhood, Grant celebrates the resilience of his family. He champions his sawmiller father - a man whose life is written on his body. A man who lumped logs three times his size at any mill where he could find work and whose missing fingers were a sign of escape not carelessness. He proudly describes his mother - a wiry and tough woman who fell in love with a wild black man, had three children under three years old and who made sure her children's plates were full by keeping hers empty.
The Tears of Strangers takes us to a world of dusty roads, run-down sawmill shacks and rats so big they'd scrape the enamel off dinner plates. It is a world revealed as sad, courageous, joyous and humorous. Stan Grant has confronted the ugliness of his childhood, where violence became a habit, and embraced the good, where blood and love are intertwined, to paint a true picture of what it meant to be born into the Wiradjuri people and to grow up caught between two cultures - a boy who would try to scrub his skin white.
Customer Reviews
PLEASE read Stan ? (-0-).
Stan .... Marc Daley here brother from the Clarence River Country - Bundjalung !
Firstly well done for having the courage to put a little bit of your life on the table for myself and other readers, this takes courage and you have displayed real strength in that area.
I am a massive reader of biographies and I have to say this is the best work I have encountered, what a great journey it has been till now, with all the ups and downs you speak of and also all the places you have had the pleasure of being a visitor .... be it a little dangerous at times.
There is a real common thread here brother as your journey resonates with most of the mob who are trying to master the art of working and living in two worlds .... it gets tricky sometimes but I think the power of reflection and remembering where your from and where you have come from helps toughen you for the next challenge.
Mandela’s ‘ Long Walk To Freedom ‘ was the book I would always put on the table as the best biography of all time until this one come along. The difference here is you could have been talking about me or any other countrymen and to be honest whilst reading I felt sadness, anger, fear and also had a good a laugh at the antics of your family man - some way back home haha (-0-).
In closing Stan .... might see you around the traps sometime and will be sure to rock up for a yarn face to face way .... again well done !!
Peace my brother....Marc Daley.