The White Girl
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4.2 • 96 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A searing new novel from leading Indigenous storyteller Tony Birch that explores the lengths we will go to in order to save the people we love.Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their families. When a new policeman arrives in town, determined to enforce the law, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect everything she loves. In The White Girl, Miles-Franklin-shortlisted author Tony Birch shines a spotlight on the 1960s and the devastating government policy of taking Indigenous children from their families.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Australian writer Birch makes his U.S. debut with a sad yet heartening tale of cruelty and prejudice against Indigenous people. In the harsh landscape of 1960s Australia, Aboriginal people are denied citizenship and placed under the legal guardianship of a local protector. Odette Brown, who is Aboriginal, has been raising her 12-year-old granddaughter, Sissy, in the government district of Deane, to stop Sissy from being taken by the authorities. In chapters conveying flashbacks as well as current tensions, Birch implies that Sissy's mother, Lila, who abandoned Sissy a year after giving birth, was raped by Sissy's father, a white man named Joe Kane. Odette's life takes a dramatic turn when she must undergo an operation in the capital, where Lila lives. She gets permission from the sheriff to travel, but doesn't want to leave Sissy behind out of fear she'll be taken by the brutal Kane family. So she makes the risky choice to disguise Sissy as a "white girl" after determining that it's their only way out, and leaves with Sissy to find Lila and check into the hospital. With a brisk pace and lush prose, Birch breathes life into Odette's wrenching and courageous search for her daughter and the hope of a better life for Sissy. Readers will feel the pull of this harrowing story.
Customer Reviews
Wow
I love Tony’s work. It takes about two lines and I am being transported into the world of a truly masterful story teller. This is a story that both challenges and uplifts. Amazing.
The author’s best work so far
4.5 stars
Author
Indigenous Australian writer who teaches at Uni of Melbourne and is a frequent guest on the ABC and at writers festivals. He has published both short and long fiction. Shadowboxing (2006), a collection of ten interlinked stories about growing up in Fitzroy, Melbourne was excellent, as was his first novel Blood (2011), which was listed for the Miles Franklin. This is his third novel. I haven’t read his second, Ghost River (2015).
Premise
Until the 1960s, Aboriginal people living in Australia had to seek official approval to travel outside their local area. All indigenous children under 16 were under the legal guardianship of a Commonwealth offical known as the Chief Protector of Aborigines, who was authorised to remove children forcibly from their families. In rural and remote communities, this responsibility was delegated to the senior local policeman, many of whom exercised their powers with considerably more diligence than sensitivity. Not surprisingly, Aboriginal people were reluctant to give up their offspring, who came to be known as the Stolen Generations.
Plot
Odette is an aboriginal woman living in a remote fictional community with her teenage daughter Lila, who gets pregnant but refuses to name the father. The colour of baby Sissy’s skin when she is born gives us a clue to his racial background. Lila takes off for “the big smoke” leaving grandma to care for Sissy: not an uncommon occurrence. Lowe, the local copper, tries to remove her; Odette battles to hold on to her. Some local white folk are supportive, especially the junk yard owner who is supposedly “not all there” after being hit in the head when young. Others not so much. Stuff happens. Resolution of sorts occurs.
Characters
The protagonists are well drawn and sympathetic. The bad guys are suitably malevolent.
Prose
High quality, evocative, never overdone.
Bottom line
Uncomfortable to read for an old white guy at times, but a worthy addition to the published literature about the experiences of the Stolen Generations. The author’s best work so far in my opinion.