summary Flashcards
a prologue; its first sentence reads: “A nation chants, But we know your story already” and it ends on the Armageddon that innocent black girls declare “begins here”. The ancestral serpent creation story coming down “those billions of years ago” also opens thischapter with the local river Wangala (meaning “beginning” in Waanyi)being its last creation. The serpent decides to rest beneath it. The three-hundred white settlers living in Desperance do not remember their own story of arrival. Normal Phantom is introduced. The camel men’s camels are shot down. Racism is rife in the town. Some Indigenous people work council jobs and in the mine to make a living and get out of poverty. Wangala’s name is changed (in a tokenistic/manipulative way) into“Normal’s river”. It appears the name is changed into Norm’s name to getIndigenous people’s minds off the mining venture happening near the town on country. Norm bad mouths white people in his address to the town in his indigenous tongue. Uncle Micky, a collector of bullet cartridges (that are evidence of violence in Desperance and the massacre of the local tribes)who is depicted as an interesting man is not chosen by the town to manage ahistorical attraction for tourists. Instead, the town prefers to make mining atourism attraction. Although Desperance hides its truths from the south(where big cities lie), the old Gulf country men and women might escape the mud to tell everyone the true story about this town
Chapter 1: From time immemorial
Norm Phantom’s house was the first Aboriginal house built on the edge of Desperance before the war started with the Joseph Midnight clan now living on the East side of town. The house looks like a fortress and is made from materials upcycled from the neighboring dump. We learn that Angel Day, Norm’s wife, will leave Norm at some point, after 30 years together–and that she is a complicated woman: “ a hornet’s nest” (Wright 2009, 13). The house is built on top of a resting spirit, on a spot Angel Day has chosen because there were white lilies there, similar to those she was born nearby.She bore Norm 6 children and at first they lived under a tree. Norm did not want to live here, but she had decided they would. Norm went out to sea and did not care to build his family a home, so Angel did it herself, until she managed to force Norm to help her build the house. Angel loves living near the dump and sees it not as a place of ruin and unwanted things but as“magnificent” (14), as her “palace” (17). She upcycles all sorts of things and sees their usefulness, their potential to enhance her home. While Normis either busy fishing or riding horses or getting “away jobs”, Angel busies herself in Desperance. Norm wants to go back to the river country, but she wants to stay right there in their “igloo of rubbish”.
Bureaucratic people for the “Aborigines department” (Wright 2009, 16),looking at Angel’s upcycling, take a picture of her and her house for she apparently represents the result of good government policies for IndigenousAustralians working out well (the irony here is scathing). The oldP ricklebush people believe Angel is sick with a disease she got from living off white people’s trash. They say her being able to make herself “more likewhite people” (Wright 2009,16) does not benefit anyone. One day, Angel and Norm argue and she tells him he cannot come back to the house unless he helps her out more. Norm leaves for five years. When he comes back, they have a seventh child: Kevin. Some time later, as Norm cleans his boat and the children are sleeping, Angel goes to the dump and finds children’s books. As she climbs up the oleander clippings from Uptown—used to conceal the council—dumped in the junkyard, the narrator digresses and mentions how Uptown’s council wants to erect a statue of something in the middle of Uptown. Even if Angel is clever enough to build a house out of trash, instead of asking Angel Day what to erect in the middle of town… They do not. They think about erecting a Santa, a giant stubby, a barramundi, Abilene the devil wild boar from Desperance or a miner but never think to ask Angel’s opinion on the matter. Instead, just like the council papers lying around in the dump, Angel is only seen as an issue, a poor Aboriginal woman who could not wait for a government grant and erected an“eyesore” (20) of a house on the edge of town. All in all, Angel thinks people who write official papers are “gammon” (20). Back to Angel day’s scavenging adventure, we read she finds a clock belonging to the council.She is scared of taking it in case they find her with the clock and accuse her of stealing it. She wants it and plans to return and retrieve at night so she and her family can tell the time and thus be “on time”, for everything—especially school. She then finds a Virgin Mary statue. She decides to bring it back home so she and her family can become as prosperous as the white people of the Christian faith who pray to the same statues in their homes.Angel believes whites own all the businesses in town because their gods answer their prayers. As she leaves the oleander heap, she sees a lot of other Pricklebush people in the dump, foraging. Angel starts an argument with the people there, telling them she owns the land on which they are walking on this morning. People get upset, and a woman looking like “the white cliffs of dover” (27) and Angel Day start fighting. We learn Will Phantom is ten when this battle of the Dump happens between the two factions living around town. As the people are fighting violently, a fire is started by Will to end the battle. Truthful E’Strange the constable of the town, a policeman from Brisbane, along with half of the council members, arrive after the fire brigade gets bogged two minutes away from the dump. Angel and theDover woman fake-hug it out in front of the police and council. The council people make sure not to come into contact with the Pricklebush people as they are afraid of catching a disease. The following day, half of the Pricklebush living nearby has moved to the eastside of town. The dump war has re-ignited the old war and divided the Pricklebush people into twodistinct factions: the Westsiders and the Eastsiders. Uptown Desperanced oes not understand why they are suddenly surrounded by two warringblackfella factions. They dislike being sandwiched in between blackfellasso much that they shower profusely “and scrub themselves hard” (31) to feel clean. The council has a meeting to talk about “Aboriginals” (32)sandwiching the town, living out of cars thinking about lighting fireseverywhere. Uptowners complain to their sanguine Elvis lookalike, fifty-sixyear old Mayor Bruiser, cattle man turned politician—rich because he hadinvested money in a mine in Western Australia. Scars all over his face,sensitive about his disfiguration, the mayor is a “self-made man” who seesthe world and the people in it as things you use. During the meeting, hevoices his views on “Aboriginals” (32). The new town clerk from theSouth, Libby Valence is there. People want to bulldoze Indigenousdwellings, want them to start living like white people. After all that talk inthe council, the council sends Cilla Mooch (an Aboriginal man working forthe council) and a delegation to Norm’s house to talk about what hashappened in the dump and the resulting factions but Norm does not care, heis working on a prawn and wishes “the white ants” (36) away as he worksaway in his taxidermy den. We learn Angel has painted her statue into anAboriginal version of the Virgin Mary. She talks with the delegation aboutthe itinerants (the Eastside), tells the delegation the Westside are decentpeople and that if they do not leave she will press charges with the legalservice for Aborigines for attempted murder. The delegation leaves. As theyall leave, Bruiser arrives at Norm’s place drunk, they stop and watch himyell at the Phantom family, taunting Angel. We learn he has raped AngelDay and other Aboriginal women in the past, she tries to get him off herproperty using boiling water but it is Norm who gets him to leave bythreatening him with a boning knife. Angel Day is a whole lot to handle forNorm
Chapter 2, Angel Day
A mariner is robbed of his memories by a “cyclone called Leda” (42). Heis named Elias. Lightning strikes a tree in Desperance. Watches do not tellthe time anymore. Time comes to a standstill. Desperance listens to theweather report about Leda the cyclone. The town is silent and the world hasturned red in Leda’s wake along the coastline with its 225 km winds.Inland, south of Desperance, the bush is on fire and the smoke is filling upthe atmosphere. The tide is high and the king tides wash onto the land near the town. The air stinks of rotten corpses. People are happy the Christmasdecorations are not ruined. The people from the town are grateful nobodyhas died in town and see this stroke of luck, as a Christmas present. Kidssight a man looking like Santa Claus coming in from the sea Chatty curious Uptowners flock to the beach. The Pricklebush peoplelisten to them prattling about how “Elias” washing up on the shore remindsthem of how they founded their seaport town. They remember arriving fromthe sea. The Pricklebush mock Uptowners’ chit chat about foundationstories for they cannot even remember their own religion. The whiteslooking at Elias notice his “fine looking skin” (48), which is tanned golden.They like it because it is tanned, not yellow or black or colored but tannedbelonging to a man of the sea. The Pricklebush link Elias to the Dreamtimeworld then explain how he has managed to arrive at Desperance by hangingon to a polystyrene box. The Pricklebush do not go down to watch becausewhite people are there reliving “a story about their origins” (50). ThePricklebush elders get up from bed and begin reminiscing about how theEastside of Town is the Wangabiya (a supposedly made up name) / JosephMidnight’s side of “Johnny-come-latelies” (55) and the Westside is NormalPhantom’s side, the real “traditional owners” (50) of these parts.Apparently, a lot of people from all over the world had come to Desperanceto claim being a Wangabiya so they could get money from the mine. JosephMidnight had gotten a payoff by simply “agreeing” (51) to the mine. JosephMidnight’s side of town are responsible for the toad pest coming intoDesperance. Because shooting toads is worth 50 cents, they had smuggledtoads up North to Carpentaria from Townsville.’
Even if Uptown has a lot of grand origin stories for themselves, their storyon this land is two lifetimes long, nothing more. Desperance is on no mapsin Australia. As a deduction from the history books read by the Pricklebushkids, Desperanians “got no sanctified ground” (56), no monuments whetherof brass or of flesh and bone i.e “no Mozart, Beethoven nothing” (Wright2009, 56). Their only success comes from rejecting “southerners” and theirgovernment and keeping to countryman government methods.
A whole conversation around boundaries and walls around Uptownensues and the Pricklebush people see walls cannot fend off the bigpowerful ancestral spirits of the land. When Desperance was threatened tobeing renamed Masterton, Uptown fought against it. They wanted theirtown to stay named after “the founder Captain Mathew DesperanceFlinders” (59). We are introduced to an old man, Captain Nicoli Finn: hesays he is the first to have sighted Elias coming out of the waters. Life forhim had been uneventful before Elias arrived. So he had run to ring thetown’s bell for everyone to know a man was coming out of the water. LibbyValence, the town clerk is the one who should have rung the bell. The kidsand Finn and everyone else run to the beach. Finally, after staring at Eliasfor ages making up origin stories, they decide he needs help. Libby Valenceasks Elias who he is, Elias cannot remember. Uptown loses patience whenElias cannot answer all of their questions about his identity. Since Libbyappears useless getting information from Elias, they ask that TruthfulE’Strange, the town’s police officer, come to question Elias. Truthful usedto work in The Valley (in Brisbane) and seems to be useless in Desperance,growing plants in his prison. People start worrying that Elias is a dangerousillegal migrant because everything and anything has been landing onDesperanian shores (contaminated fish, dead wales, detritus, illegalimmigrants) in a world “coming apart” (71). Finn gives Elias his name“Elias Smith”.
With Uptown being hit by plagues of rats and locusts, Elias is seen like agift from God and treated as such. After a while trying to becomeaccustomed to this whole new angel/messiah-like identity to replace the onehe has forgotten, Elias craves normality. He doubts himself, loses faith inhimself and the town’s uniqueness. Eventually, everybody forgets about hisgrand arrival story. During the wet, Elias believes and argues more angelswill descend to Desperance, people interpret his behavior as him becomingas mad as Nicoli Finn (78). The town council is fed up with his stories anddeploy Lonely’s net. Lonely a.k.a A.D. Smith is a white man married to anAboriginal woman named Glenny. They have 12 kids. The net is made ofprayers and “magic nails” (80). It protects Uptown from cyclones duringthe wet. Eventually, Elias is entrusted with guardianship of the town after Sallyanne Smith, the town’s scribe, frets to the council officers about thetown needing protection. A comparison is made that contrasts the Council’syellowing pages storing information about threats to the town on whichvermin defecate and stored information in enduring Pricklebush minds thatvermin cannot “shit on” (82).Years later, fires and other incidents startle the town while Elias is onpatrol. Elias is suspected then accused. In Loydie Smith’s Barramundi bar,men talk about executing him for arson and the other incidents. On theother end of the bar, on the Aboriginal side called the snake pit, blackfellaswatch Elias be trialed. Mrs. C. Caucus blames God for all the trouble, butthe others have none of it. In the end, Elias is asked to leave the town. Apassage about birds and the new school teacher Danny Real precedes Elias’move out of town
Chapter 3: Elias Smith comes…and goes
Norm watches Elias walk out to sea in his small boat named Choice. Theboat looks like a coffin (foreshadowing of Elias’ (the ally’s) death and hischoice to help Will and Hope–note the onomastics, the play on words andsounds and the use of strong nouns as names). Norm remembers their talkabout yidimil, the morning star which only comes for death. The star isa.k.a Venus / Aphrodite. He thinks about their time out at sea and wondersif Elias is already dead. He debates whether or not to go and bid himfarewell but is paralyzed inside his house while everybody else in Uptownalso watches Elias from their homes, making sure nobody interferes withtheir decision to repudiate him from the town. In Desperance, Norm is arenowned man of the sea, people from all over the place flock toCarpentaria to come and see him at the Fisherman’s hotel. He is “an asset tohis race” (92) and the town. Sad to see Elias (his only seafaring equal inknowledge and strength) leave, Norm decides to erase his legend alongsideElias’s. If Uptown is to cast Elias and the memory of him away, he plans todo the same with his and stop being the man of the sea Uptown so appreciates. Even though the Phantom man has a big voice, he does not callout to Elias. If he had been able to, he would have told Elias he should nothave upset Uptown.Desperance had changed ever since being bought by the big miningcompany Gurfurrit international. It had disposed of what little humanity ithad left for money. Mine men were everywhere around the bush with their“thin wires” enabling mining multinationals worldwide to listen to whatDesperanians had to say about their operations and it was best to keep yourmouth shut (or so the Pricklebush people think). Norm had warned Elias notto accept his town guardianship job against the mine’s few dollars andreminded him who his real friends were.Desperance celebrates Elias leaving town by honking and beeping theircars for ten minutes and the council men go out to stretch the safety netover Uptown. Norm and the Westside Pricklebush ask that the protectivenet be drawn over their side too but the council say that the net stops beforethe wasteland and will not stretch beyond and over their dwelling. ThePricklebush ask Norm to go and cause trouble as retaliation in Uptown andNorm tells the old people what “trouble smelt like” (97) by telling themabout his father’s story. His father had run away from men on horses whohad killed his parents and many others out in the bush around Westside.Norm’s storytelling voice and technique is revered and he often tells hisstories to his cockatoo bird Pirate. The bird has been blessed by the Pope in19861 in Alice Springs and is a part of a flock of birds who are capable ofswearing in English. Norm has a white dog named Dallas who is a fan ofcountry and western music, and contrary to the story-voracious bird, doesnot care about Norm’s family stories. Norm entrusts his bird with his storiesand believes they will be better remembered by Pirate than any of his sevenchildren. Especially his third activist child, Will Phantom, whom he nolonger recognizes as his own. Norm is disappointed his children havemarried the wrong people according to Aboriginal law/kinship system–orthe local feuds. His 16 year old boy Kevin and his three girls: Janice, Patsyand Girlie who had come back home with their kids after unsuccessfulmarriages are at home with him. We learn that Kevin was a bright kid before his accident at the mine where he worked. His white teachers praisedhim and his A plus Tim Winton essays. Norm wanted him to leaveDesperance and the family and get a better life but Kevin ends up workingfor the mine, for money, at 16. Due to his size and build, he is unfit for thejob but hired anyway. Inso and Donny, his two older brothers were alreadyworking for the mine. His brothers were built like boxing fighters andfought a lot in town, dreaming of becoming professionals. They had gottenkicked out of Westside by the elders on a day Norm was away fishingbecause they did not want any of their money, trouble or fighting around thePricklebush anymore
After an explosion on Kevin’s first day down the mine renders him“stupid”, Norm blames the teachers for his son’s accident. He then blamesthe Council Shire. Had they extended the safety net of prayers over hishome, then his son would not have been a victim of this accident. On themorning of Elias’ departure, Kevin comes swinging a knife at his dad. He iswearing a swastika covered T-shirt. Norm gets angry at his son for dressingup like a Nazi and tells him he hates what the Germans did to the Jews.Kevin is injured from fighting in the early hours of the day in the bush.Eastsiders have chased Kevin back to his house in their Hilux, threateningto leave him to Abilene, the wild murderous pig from the plains. We learnthat although Joseph Midnight and Normal Phantom were both related toUncle, Old Midnight has gone about spreading rumors about how Normhad sent Abilene to kill Uncle When Kevin gets home from being chased in the bush, all three sisters getout of the house to meet him. Flanked by their dogs, they face theEastsiders. We get a physical description of the girls here and a bit ofbackground for Girlie who wants to get an education at TAFE. Noelie fromEastside and Girlie (19 years old) yell and threaten each other. Noelie isGirlie’s cousin and womanizing ex. Eventually, Noelie and the others in theHilux leave Norm’s house. Kevin goes inside the house and yells at his dadfor not putting up a fight and letting his sisters do all the defending. Kevinhas a fit then falls unconscious after being “knocked back” on his bed by his sisters. Everyone goes back to their “different part of the compound totend to the children who luckily had slept through the noise” (Wright 2009,113).
Chapter 4: Number One house
The Big Mozzie Fishman appears here for the first time with hisfollowers, driving out of a dust storm in a procession of about thirty olddusty Holdens and Falcon sedans. They are “holy pilgrims of theAboriginal world” (114). Mysterious, the men journey along the Dreamingtracks “through almost every desert of the continent” (119). They aredescribed as bush mechanics. Mozzie was born to old parents who wereforced to move around by people who disapproved of their belatedconceiving of Mozzie. His parents think moving around so much is nogood. Mozzie claims he was “conditioned by his parents to move for thebenefit of other people” (118) and apparently got his name from havingswarms of mosquitoes following him in his youth. Young lost people, sickpeople… they all join the Fishman on his convoy through sacred country.Mozzie helps his people die in peace as they travel along sacred routesbecause the “whitefella government” (120) is not helping them at all. TheFishman has visions of white people harming black people. He sees whitehands wanting to change and control everything. White spirits, he says, arenot departing the earth and are “locked up in their own injustice” (122).Mozzie is a friend of Norm’s. Both are big spirit men, men of Law ofcountry (Fishman) and sea country (Norm–although he’s also a man of landcountry). Mozzie is good at finding water in dry places though.
Anywhere he goes with his convoy, white people see him and hisfollowers as dirty virus carrying third-world like people, as “boongs” /eyesores on the horizon. The main reaction of white people sighting the“black hordes” (125) of the Fishman is to hide to preserve their cleanlinessand decency. There is no exchange or sharing of Red Roses chocolate boxes(125) to be had. When in Uptown, Mozzie generates an obsession. He likesto walk into Uptown and create trouble. Norm cautions him to stop doingthat while people in the Pricklebush talk about killing Mozzie as he always came back to Desperance to cause trouble with Uptown when they did notwant him to. Mozzie likes to give speeches in Uptown and convince peoplethat if he had not been born in the Pricklebush, he would have made a greatPresident or Prime Minister (128) with his blue eyes (one of them being afake one) and Clint Eastwood face. At some point, Constable E’Strangecomes and ask Mozzie what he is up to on his visit and Mozzie talks aboutnuclei and other “scientify” things. He is compared to a nuclear bomb andsuspected to be making bombs. People having heard of his talk about nucleicome to face him and ask him to leave, he says he will blow up in theirfaces adding oil to fire. Mozzie is often heard on TV and the radio talkingabout the mine in Desperance. Women swoon over Mozzie, includingAngel Day a.k.a “the Queen of Sheba” (132). This did not stop Norm andMozzie from being excellent friends One day a catholic priest named Father Danny drives into Carpentaria anderects little white crosses through and outside the Phantom house. Angelthen gets some guru man to live with them. All of that for the spirit serpentliving under their house. Eventually, Angel leaves Norm to be with “acommon black man”, a “money spider”, a “coconut” (135). Mozzie tellsNorm he is devastated by Angel’s stooping so low. Later in the novel wefind out the man in question is none other than Mozzie. Mozzie believes“Biblical stories live in somebody else’s desert” (136) and belong “to theJewish people” (136) and did nothing but “indoctrinate Aboriginalcommunities like grog” (136). It turns out he is travelling with WillPhantom. The Fishman had taken him on board to reconnect to country.Norm did not care, he was on bad terms with his son who had walked to theMidnight side with whom Norm’s family had been warring against for400 years. They had even taken that war to court once and had a “casedismissed” (150). Old cyclone was at the head of the Midnight clan at thestart of the war and created the myth of Abilene the pig. The Fishmanprocession arrives at a lagoon. A man is sitting in a boat in the distance onthe lagoon. They realize he is dead. The Fishman decides they ought toleave and let someone else but them report about the dead body. Will staysbehind. It turns out the dead man is Elias.
Chapter 5: Mozzie Fishman
Will is now the focalizer. The reader is made to relive the moment theconvoy and Will find Elias dead far inland–which is odd. Will encountersmen from the mine and gets shot at as he tries to get Elias’s body out of theinland lagoon to safety. Elias’s sea eagle bird is killed by the mine men’shelicopter blades whirring about the lagoon. The men chase Will, who findsrefuge in a cave. More men arrive, including his two older brother Donnyand Inso. Torrential rain and flood. Father Danny enters the picture, getsinto a fight with the mine men who then leave. Will comes out of hidingand asks that father Danny drop him off in Desperance. In Desperance, Willwalks home to drop off Elias’s body for his dad to care for. He remembersgood times and bad times including a time when his dad found a dead bodyout in the bush and they were accused of murder. As he leaves, Will is saidto feel his father’s grief as his father finds Elias dead in his taxidermyworkshop
Chapter 6: Knowing Fish
The focalizer is Norm Phantom. His thoughts are turned towards his creations (his taxidermy) and the fascinating secrets of the fish room.Apparently, people do not believe Norm when he says he is not the creatorof those intricate fish gems and that he is only a vessel for God’s work.Norm says he only created the workroom. He says what happens in it is themaking of the supernatural. According to Norm, a spirit inhabits the room.The narrator underlines Norm relegates the perfection of his creations to thesupernatural so that he may “skirt around the true origins of his genius”(197) and ensure people do not envy him in an unhealthy way. It is said theroom changes as things happen in there. The room is depicted as alive, as ahoarder of thoughts and other people’s secrets sucked out of their minds.People from all walks of life/all over the world come to ask him to work onfish they want stuffed.
Norm discovers Elias’s remains. Norm calls in his three daughters. Thegirls do not immediately recognize Elias but then the three of themimmediately think of the body and decaying fish as pieces of evidence
Norm’s daughters start thinking about getting rid of it all because the police(who already think of their father as a murderer) might use the fish andbody against him. They deal with Elias’ death in a way that is undignifiedand grotesque–translating the stress and anxiety they are going through. Thegirls start burning “the evidence” and start with the fish. Norm is furiousand is persuaded the smoke from the fires blowing over Desperance willdraw unwanted attention to themselves. In the meantime, Kevin has a fitand vomits profusely as he is tied to his bed and almost drowns in it. Welearn it is not the first time this happens to Kevin.Elias Smith’s body is left on the ground as they decide they have to saveKevin from his fit. Kevin wants to tell them he saw Will whom he hadalways thought was dead. When Kevin calms down after Norm hugs himuntil he falls asleep (Norm has cried and was appalled by his daughter’sbehavior towards their brother), they all go and drink tea, Norm tells them itis the worst day of his life. Constable Truthful invites himself in in. Girlie,Janice, Patsy, Norm and Truthful are in the kitchen. We learn Truthful hasbeen abusing Girlie. Rain is coming
Chapter 7: Something about the Phantom family
Norm wants to kill Truthful but does not. He decides to take Elias out tosea. The wind dies. Norm goes back to the house to collect the dead man’sfish (what is left of it). He expects Gordie (the safety net man) to turn upany minute and catch him taking Elias out to sea. Out at sea, we learn AngelDay has not left with a common black man but with Mozzie Fishman some14 years ago. Norm has an argument with dead Elias about Angel Day’sleaving day. Norm catches a giant Spanish mackerel and is visited by thesea woman. Water and groper stories ensue, including one where Normrecounts the barbarism of when white fishermen killed a groper. Heremembers how he and Elias had waited for it to die and kept the fishcompany. Norm buries Elias at sea and falls asleep from exhaustion. It tookhim more than two weeks at sea to find the groper place where he wanted tobury Elias. The weather is stormy in the distance, Norm sleeps fitfully.Birds steal his drying fish. Norm tries fishing near the groper place, it does not work. Coaxed by the sea lady to leap into the water, Norm wants to goand find Elias but fights the pull of death. The old man gets caught in astorm and ends up moored on an island of death and decay where femaleghosts and the Devil woman Gardajala tantalize him.
Chapter 8: Norm’s responsibility
The chapter opens from Norm’s perspective with stories of the landwoman Gardajala, and the sea woman whose name cannot be pronouncedbut whose physique resembles that of a shark-skinned woman with sea-weed tentacular hair. Gundugundu men also enter the plot and the Kadajalawhite man devils are there too (colonizers). Gundugundu are said to bemore dangerous than the white man devil. In the midst of all the storiesflashing through his mind, Norm has enough energy to get up and help a sixyear old child trying to save his tin boat from the incoming king tides. Theboy looks like Will. Later on, the boy goes and gets some fish for Normwith a bird who resembles Norm’s cockatoo perched on his head. Theyconverse. It turns out the boy (Bala) is Will and Hope’s child and thusNorm’s grandchild. Bala calls Norm Malbu (old man). Bala and Normargue. Norm suddenly only sees the Wangabiya/Midnight traits in Bala. Heonly sees Hope’s features. They get caught in a storm on the island, Normgoes inland to find Bala. He is accompanied by fairy-like Yinbirra people(286). They help him find Bala, whom he saves from a flood. He tries tofind higher ground for safety with his grandson. Apparently, Bala has beenalone in the bush for a while, his mom Hope has been taken away by thebad men (the mine men) in a helicopter. Bala saw her fall from the sky
Chapter 9: Bala, the child of hope
Back in Desperance. People are affected by the weather, the “giantsugarbag man” (Wright 2009, 295). Humidity generates mildew before thedust storms (296). Desperance’s domestic pets are covered in sores,“moulting chooks” (Wright 2009, 305) lay ugly dirty eggs. Indigenous kidscalled “the petrol sniffers” (305) are brought to the Uptown jail. A parallelis established then: while the Pricklebush kids are locked up in jail, Uptownkids’ only problem is that they do not want to eat eggs. The three little boys in jail are: Tristum Fishman, Junior Fishman Luke, Aaron Ho Kum. Theyare being accused of killing Geordie (the safety net man). Geordie died onthe night Norm left Desperance to go and bury Elias at sea. Nobody seemsto care that little boys are being jailed, everyone is too busy thinking about“inbred pet fowl” (Wright 2009, 306), talking about egg productiontechniques
There is a flashback to when Geordie was found. The use of the passivevoice makes it that we never get to know who found Georgie. Uptownpeople decide not to divulge what is happening in their town. A nonsensicaltown council meeting is held, Uptown prattles away. Forced to come to thetown meeting by Truthful, the Pricklebush people explain they dislike how“the foghorn man” speaks of the dead and the cemetery (Wright 2009, 313).There are references to race classifications. Half the town claims to haveextra gifts of perception enabling them to see ghosts, they got this gift aseasily as they would “buy a new car”. Everyone blames the petrol sniffingkids for killing Geordie. We shift to Norm’s house and the sisters. LibbyValance rings the bell. Everyone is happy when Truthful and Bruiser arriveto the town council meeting
Bruiser claims to know who the culprits are: the three little boysmentioned earlier. Nobody (except Valence who questions Bruiser) issurprised the Fishman boys are to blame because their mother is Angel Dayand “she don’t look after them boys” (316). However, Aaron Ho Kum is asurprise, a “question mark” (316). He is the son an Aboriginal woman (noname given to this character) has had with the town Barman Lloydie Smith.The word “miscegenation” is used to define this child’s conception (thisechoes earlier race classification talk). It is said the boy is raised by themother’s hardworking farmer/goat herding brother
We learn about how the little boys were found and brought to jail. Theboys were found in an abandoned car, high on petrol or something else.They are hardly aware of what is happening to them as they get taken to jailby mayor Bruiser and Truthful. In jail, both men toss the boys around like abag of potatoes. Truthful stops hitting the boys while Bruiser keeps at it.Truthful wants Bruiser to stop, because he fears there will be a “death in custody” (Wright 2009, 328) and that when both of them are trialed, Bruiserwill be freed and he will be the fall guy. Silence from the drugged kids isinterpreted as contempt by Bruiser who keeps on hauling the little boysaround. Truthful asks that they go and question the parents (too late) butBruiser keeps beating up the children. Truthful fires his gun in the air thenpoints it at Bruiser who taunts the policeman right back telling him to shoothim then the “dogs” referring to the kids
They decide to leave the prison to go and talk to the parents; they go toAngel’s Uptown house bought by the Fishman for her to live in with theirtwo kids. The house is sexualized by the narrator, then breached andvandalized by the two men. It is said Angel had had other intimaterelationships with other men out of loneliness when the Fishman was out onthe road. After ploughing through Angel’s home, they leave to go to the pubwhere they talk about the mine, money and wives. We are reminded of thepub’s segregated architecture (the snake pit vs. the barramundi bar) andKevin Phantom is said to be next door, inebriated, asking people foralcohol. As he leaves the bar, he is picked up by men in a car who turn outto be “men in white hoods” (Wright 2009, 329) with bad intentions. Theytorture Kevin who is then found by his sister, Girlie. Girlie is describedsitting on the road near her brother’s broken body as Truthful goessearching for her. He has gone to the pub in between. He helps her getKevin on a flight to the nearest hospital 600 km away.Inso and Donny quit the mine to go and see Kevin, intent on avengingtheir brother. Both brothers and Girlie demand that Truthful do his job andfind the culprits, but apparently Truthful is too busy working on Geordie’scase, keeping an eye on the young boys in prison. Janice and Patsy thinkTruthful is molesting the boys as there is talk around town about him beingbisexual and having molested people in custody. Truthful thinks Kevin’sfamily are hypocritical given how they have also poorly cared for Kevin inthe past after his accident in the mine handicapped him. Truthful keepsslipping “like a bat out of hell” (335) from the city out to the Phantoms tosee Girlie. Truthful does not stay with Girlie at night anymore, andsomething seems off about the police officer.
We learn Truthful has been tending to the kid’s dead bodies in jail afterdiscovering and refusing to accept he and Bruiser had caused deaths incustody (the boys hung themselves). He has gone mad and has decided tofeed and care for the boys a little too late. He is feeding them breakfast,lunches and dinners postmortem. Bruiser finds out E’Strange has beentending to the dead kids for days after busting in after a morning at the pubdrinking beer. The jail had been reeking for some time but nobody had doneanything to find out what had happened in the jail except for JosephMidnight who had sensed something had gone wrong in this place. Bruisergoes to the pub to tell everyone what he has “found out” in the jail. Herecounts finding the boys in a way which portrays him as uninvolved in theboys’ deaths in the first place. He is then possessed by one of the kids ormaybe is going partially mad. Lloydie punches him out of his craze andBruiser thanks him. Bruiser calls Valance, announces the kids are dead andtells the people in the pub that the town’s folk had to arm themselves andget ready to take the mad Truthful down. Valance, who had heard them bothbeating the kids in jail from his office in the town council is angry andashamed he cannot kill the lying mayor
Chapter 10: The giant in the cloak
Throwback to the Fishman’s perspective around the time Elias died. Heleaves Desperance at the same time Norm leaves for the sea. He thinksabout Norm and Will whom he had last seen at the lagoon. Will, two yearsago, had started purposefully damaging the Gurfurrit mine pipeline and theFishman’s convoy had saved him by smuggling him out of Desperance afterthe State Premier ordered over a squadron of policemen to go up toDesperance to catch Will. After a bloody altercation with the police on thebridge as they exit town, the convoy crosses the bridge and Will is saved.The narrator shifts to the police efforts trying to find Will. Uptown couldnot describe Will to the police as to them Indigenous Australians all havethe same features and look alike. The police brought in the entire Phantomfamily into the station, including Angel in order to take a good look at thePhantom’s physical appearance so that if they were to see someone lookinglike them, it would be Will of course.
Joseph Midnight had sent Hope and Bala away to hide from the miningpeople and the police who were harassing them by putting them on Elias’sboat. Only Elias knew. Joseph who has heard Elias is dead waits for Will bythe beach, hoping he will be able to send Will away to a Dreaming place faraway. Will eventually comes home to the shore one night and Old Midnightis there. He passes on a song to a Dreaming place and urges Will not tomess the steps to the Dreaming place up. He also explains why he decidedto send Hope away in detail (direct speech). Will confirms he had foundElias’ body and cannot believe how dangerous the war he is going to haveto wage against the mine is. He compares old feuds (the Phantoms vs theMidnights) to new wars on country where there are no rules because it is amoney war where “nothing is sacred” (Wright 2009, 363)
Will and Joseph argue about who started the fires in town. JosephMidnight does not believe the mine started the fires in town and burned thecouncil down because they had paid for it to fuel their “good neighbor”policy and entente. Will says that type of policy is to butter people up sothere is no opposition to mining. Joseph says he wanted to send Bala toNorm for Norm to protect him from the mine men but Norm threw stones atthe kid like it was a dog so Bala came back to the Eastside. Will does notknow if the story is true or if the stones are figures of speech for there areno stones on the claypans to throw at people.
Will leaves and makes it to the Dreaming place. There are five islands.The first one has litter on its beach and many pelicans. The others havebirds on them too. They attack his legs as he searches for his son and Hope.No signs of fire pits or life anywhere. On the fifth island, he finds the samebottles of plastic as on the first one. Bottles from a fallen container perhaps?From Asia? Will remembers seeing islands of plastic debris in hischildhood on fishing trips and how they were forbidden to go on seajourneys because of the plastic flotsam in the water near desperance. Hethen hears and sees an Italian mineworker singing to magpies on the beach,he runs to hide and wonders why the mine has sent workers here. Will looksat the Italian singing to country thinking it is only a love song whereas theirsinging and knowing country spans millennia. Will thinks about the money
made by the international mining venture benefiting people abroad.Midnight thought the island was safe, but it is not. Things have changed.Midnight’s knowledge of country is ancient and does not take into accounthow mining has changed everything. As he speculates on what the Italian isdoing here on this island, Will is captured by the mine men, taken on ahelicopter where he sees Hope fall into the sea. Will’s vision creates abridge between this chapter and Chapter 9, where Bala tells Norm he hadseen his mother fall from the sky
A shift in point of view has the reader realize two of the Fishman’s thieves—who had been working their way around the mine to “steal” petrol andother things—saw Will be taken hostage. Back to Will. Will ponders lifeand death as he wakes up from being bludgeoned to sleep by the mine men.He cannot believe it is Hope he has seen being pushed out of the helicopterwindow. Flashback. He remembers the first time he saw her by the river at ameeting he was attending where they were all talking about the mine. Hehad come to the meeting to find recruits to fight for land rights. At themeeting he hears some people appreciating the jobs being created for themwhile others simply do not want to cede country. They want it back andwould even kill for it. Will had thought about how fake the mine’s frontmen were, pretending they did not know anything about Native Title whenit was certain they, along with everybody else involved in this miningventure, knew everything about the legal ramifications surrounding NativeTitle rights. Back in the present at the mine, the helicopter lands and Willassesses the mine men: they are as fit and as young as he is. Will looks atthe wildlife outside, believing the kingfisher he sees is possibly amanifestation of Hope and Elias’ spirits… and perhaps Bala’s spirit. Heremembers a time when he and Old man Midnight had inspected the mine’ssurroundings and found birds were affected by the operation and mutatingas well. He wonders how many evolutions it will take animals to understanda mine is dangerous or lethal. The men taunt and torture Will. One of themen phones a higher up and tells him they have killed Elias and got rid ofHope as she was useless and could not find Bala
Will falls asleep exhausted then wakes around 6pm to the sound of theradio, he tries to figure out where his torturers are and tries to listen to whatis happening in the kitchenette near where he is being held, in a big hangar.Will thinks back to the time he had seen Graham Spilling (the mine boss),on TV, offering anyone a hefty 10,000 dollar compensation againstinformation regarding his whereabouts. He then feels he is not alone. Hethen remembers seeing the Fishman’s thieves along with backup in thespinifex as the mine men were taking him in earlier. He listens to theweather report: a cyclone is brewing and will head along the Arafura sea.He thinks about what old Midnight’s said: there are cyclones every twoweeks now. The old spirits are angry, polluted country and sea country needa great spirit to come and tidy things up. The Fishman’s men create a firediversion to come in and free Will. Will, once freed, wants to avenge hispartner and little boy whom he thinks have been killed by Gurrfurrit men.Will is finally convinced to run away. The two mine men die trying to catchWill. Will’s helpers and Will escape successfully. They and a dozen convoymen all watch the fire consume the mine (long narration)
Chapter 11: The mine
The Fishman is waiting for his men near the lagoon where Elias wasfound. He had sent them to steal petrol, tear the mine down and save Will.He has sent Angel to a big city and the convoy away. He tells Angel hewould have her come back when he knew the situation was safe. He urgeshis convoy men to split up and to beware of the police. Will comes backwith the two men who have saved him and the two charred dead guards.They argue about what to do with the bodies: the Fishman wants to burythem decently, Will wants to let them rot. The Fishman starts telling Willabout how Joseph Midnight’s clan had come around to the lagoon.Midnight and Fishman do not get along and it is all due to the old wars andto how the Midnight clan used mining to get native title rights over parcelsof land. The Midnight mob had come bearing sad news about the Fishman’skids dying in custody. Will is shocked but still wants to let the mine menrot. The Fishman’s story does not pacify Will.
Will gets his way and so Chuck and Cookie are left to rot in the sameplace they had left Elias to rot some time ago. An eye for an eye. TheFishman stops arguing with Will although he disapproves of Will’sbehavior. They then decide to go to a sacred place to bury the threemurdered boys they have picked up from the jail. In the jail, they foundTruthful hanging dead. When they had gone into town, everyone washaving the meeting (from Chapter 10). They decide to dispose of Truthful’sbody in Bruiser’s living room. In the bush, they reach a sacred cave; theFishman, Will and the others enter the cave after the Fishman speaks to thecave in an ancient Indigenous language. They walk down the cave to a largeunderground sea. They put the kids in canoes moored on a jetty and bidthem farewell. Will heads towards the opening of the cave first for safety,he hears the mine helicopter but it apparently only had been around thereout of coincidence.The men hunt; Will keeps an eye on the 6 helicopters unofficially sentlooking for them by Graham Spilling after he found out about Chuck andCookie being left to rot in the middle of the lagoon. Spilling does not wantthe cops involved. The Fishman and his men sense the low pressuresystem/cyclone building up in the Gulf and plan on going inland to be outof the “sky spirit’s” way. Will decides to part ways, to go back North to tendto his unfinished business: he wants to go and find his son.Shift to Angel Day leaving Desperance with three young men who plan todisappear in a big city down south: Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne. Asthey stop nearby some “great mining town”, the boys get arrested. Thepoliceman who makes the arrest takes a good look at Angel and leaves herin the unregistered car, taking the keys out of the ignition. She hitchhikes,gets taken in by a big black truck. The Fishman’s men who had arrived nearthe hill the boys had stopped at try to yell at her to stop, but she does nothear them and disappears into the truck. The men from the convoy dreamabout Angel Day living in a cold country overseas fishing snakes, living adreadful life. Some zealot says he has received a letter from Angel in hismind. In the end, the Fishman says he has never known Angel Day
Chapter 12: About sending letters
Will has travelled far North, uninterrupted. He is fearful and thinks he isweak. He wants to return to the Fishman. He plans to get to Uptown arounddusk. When he gets there, he witnesses Uptown going mad cutting treesdown. The annual tree cutting event named the “Great Bat Drive” is takingplace. Bats come around Desperance every year and so Uptown makesplans to deter them every year. One year, Joseph Midnight’s dog got bittenby a bat and Will had gone straight up to it and smacked it dead because itwas raging. He took the bat home and cooked it on the barbecue. Willgained a reputation for hitting the dog.Uptown fears bats, especially their urine and being in contact with theirfur. They fear they could catch bat diseases passed on through their poultry.The bat drive lasts a day, everyone shoots in the air, including Carmen thefish and chip lady who also works as the town’s pyrotechnic. Everyone usesfirecrackers and chainsaws to scare the bats away. They eventually fly awayand go elsewhere. In spite of the clear signs of the cyclone, Uptown decidesto keep the Great Bat Drive up. Will sees the cyclone bird, a signal that rainis going to fall. The bureau of meteorology finally breaks the news: acyclone is approaching. Everyone in Desperance flees, including Bruiser inhis car with Danny Real, the schoolteacher. At the end of the line of cars arethe Pricklebush cars. Moochie seems to be the calmest and most resigned ofthem all. He says they have been evacuated before and nothing hadhappened to Uptown (this passage is funny, in retrospect). Will standing inthe bush is sighted by Joseph Midnight. Midnight tells Will he should comewith them. Will explains he is going to look for Bala and Hope. They saygoodbye. Will gets to the pub for shelter, where Lloydie Smith is smoking acigarette. Lloydie helps Will to safety by giving him instructions to get tothe first floor of the bar. He also lets Will help himself to the food he has inhis bar while he ties himself up to his bar top/mermaid.Will, upstairs, waits and thinks about waterspouts, his father and oldfishermen dead at sea. He hears ghosts travelling through the room he is inand sees all of the ghosts of the old people he knew outside on theverandah. An old woman who speaks like the Queen makes a speech. Then
other storyteller ghosts compete to come and finish their stories to him. Oneold woman tells him about how a cyclone went looking for a Law breakerfar inland and killed him. He dreams of Norm, Bala and Hope andremembers times spent at the beach with Elias and Norm, observing his dadwatch the waters and—according to Mozzie Fishman—conjure storms outof the sand and water to eradicate enemies. He thinks the cyclone hittingtown is one created by his father. Will realizes Norm, Bala and Hope arealive and decides to leave the building to go and search for them. Before heleaves, he goes and looks for Lloydie but cannot find him downstairs so heheads back up. He is projected outside into the waters, as he glances back,he sees the hotel/bar is collapsing: Desperance is being wiped clean.“History … obliterated” (Wright 2009, 473). Will can hear angels chantinga hymn.He is swept out to sea and ends up on an island of debris which isdescribed as embryonic. Will starts thinking about surviving on this islandand what to do in order to intimately know the place and the currents tied tothis island. As time goes by, the wreckage becomes a fertile place whereplants manage to grow and animals to breed. Will’s mind stores enormousamounts of information about the stars and the sea and his island of debris.He synchronizes his life to the elements and changing cycles of the place heis in, attuned to all of its changes. He is painfully aware of the fragile stateof this island and is in survival mode. Thinking about how to survive if itcame to collapse, he finally finishes an emergency raft, in case the islandwere to disintegrate. Even if everything is bountiful on this island, he onlyuses what he needs. His hoarder/gatherer lifestyle is punctuated with boutsof working on a sturdy boat meant to go out and find his family. Willrealizes he and his island are heading towards a spiraling current (probablyone of the giant garbage patches in the Pacific ocean). He growsmelancholic and wonders how he could possibly get back to the Gulf. Hewants to escape his island which he sees as a prison. Will has nightmares ofhis boat being unseaworthy. His mind becomes a stage for horrificscenarios. His boat crumbles apart as it becomes infested with whiteants/termites. The island is full of them, it is then invaded by seagulls. He wishes he could be saved by one of the many boats passing through, butnobody ever really looks at his island of debris. Will feels like he is trappedin hell
Chapter 13: The wash
Norm has been on his boat for forty days and nights. He has left adevastated Desperance behind. On the fortieth night, Norm is 4 km short offinding Will. He is navigating unknown waters quietly, unafraid, busyinghimself like he always does. Norm looks at the stars and feels Elias’presence. Hope is on his boat, asleep. They had recently been arguing aboutwhat was true and what was not regarding stories about the stars and thesky. Hope is afraid of the sea and the stars. In fact, she believes looking atstars leads to death. Norm is adamant and thinks all of the stories OldMidnight has passed on to Hope are lies. Norm, who is navigating bylooking at the very sea and stars that his daughter-in-law fears so much, haspassed on his knowledge to his grandson Bala so he can survive in the sea ifhe came to die. Bala, who has been tested on maps drawn in the sand on theislands were he was found is traumatized by the sky as well because he hasseen his mother fall from it.
We learn Hope had been found by Norm and Bala, five days after her sonhad last seen her fall from the sky. She was found on a beach, walking. Shedid not remember falling from the sky and starts pestering Norm aboutbeing on this island with them. At first they live apart on the island, thenthey end up working on rebuilding Norm’s boat. Norm wonders how shehas survived falling from the sky. She never answers him. They argueendlessly. Norm nicknames her “Mad talk” and compares her to a doll witha gaping wide mouth. He asks her if she believes in the Bible, she does not.She says she does not believe in white people’s stories. Norm says he haslearned things from the Bible and got an education from it
Hope has dreams about Will being stranded on a rubbish island but Norm,the sea man he is, claims he has never seen anything like an island made ofrubbish before. He does not believe her. Persuaded this dream is a lie meantto get him to go searching for Will, he decides not to listen to her. All in all the three of them end up navigating the sea looking for Will. Norm knowsthey cannot sail the sea looking for Will forever because of the manycyclones that will soon be back with the wet season. He then feels the seapulling him back towards Desperance, his feeling is confirmed by hissighting of Fomalhaut, the Southern Fish. Upon his sailing back towardsDesperance, Norm hears the sound of the frogs from Desperance reachingout to sea. He had missed that sound the most, so he realizes. When they getto Desperance, followed by gropers and after Norm pushes the boat up tosafety inland, they look around for landmarks but see none. Norm isconvinced he has navigated right and has brought them all home. The landis described with words associated to renewal. As Norm walks inland withBala on his shoulders, he hears Hope heading back to sea. She is afraid buthopeful. With the maps inside her head, he feels she will find Will before itis too late. Norm bids her farewell, deciding not to tell his grandson hismom has decided to go back to sea to search for his dad to bring him home.The gropers help her back out to sea as she rows with all her might. Normregains Desperance where skinny dogs roam streets that no longer existlooking for their masters. They cannot bark anymore after surviving thecyclone which has left them mute. He shoos the dogs away and tells hisgrandson he will see his parents again, someday, after a string of events heenumerates. Norm is pleased to see the land as it is now and is lookingforward to rebuilding his home where it was before, on the westside ofDesperance–the town which he leaves to the dogs. Neither of them speak asthey would rather listen to country sing and the dozen species of frog choiralong their walk home
Chapter 14: Coming back
