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Booktopia Comments
Kim Scott is the winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best book in south-east Asia and the Pacific for That Deadman Dance -
Book Description
Big-hearted, moving and richly rewarding, That Deadman Dance is set in the first decades of the 19th century in the area around what is now Albany, Western Australia. In playful, musical prose, the book explores the early contact between the Aboriginal Noongar people and the first European settlers.
The novel's hero is a young Noongar man named Bobby Wabalanginy. Clever, resourceful and eager to please, Bobby befriends the new arrivals, joining them hunting whales, tilling the land, exploring the hinterland and establishing the fledgling colony. He is even welcomed into a prosperous local white family where he falls for the daughter, Christine, a beautiful young woman who sees no harm in a liaison with a native.
But slowly – by design and by accident – things begin to change. Not everyone is happy with how the colony is developing. Stock mysteriously start to disappear; crops are destroyed; there are "accidents" and injuries on both sides. As the Europeans impose ever stricter rules and regulations in order to keep the peace, Bobby's Elders decide they must respond in kind. A friend to everyone, Bobby is forced to take sides: he must choose between the old world and the new, his ancestors and his new friends. Inexorably, he is drawn into a series of events that will forever change not just the colony but the future of Australia...
Reviews
'Kim Scott won the Miles Franklin more than a decade ago for his novel Benang. His latest, That Deadman Dance, must surely be under consideration for a raft of major prizes.
'The insights into early colonial times in WA are fascinating, especially the section concerning the Yankee whalers. However, it is Noongar people, and their light touch on the landscape, which hold the greatest interest. What starts as a reasonably promising relationship between English and Noongar gradually deteriorates as the power shifts towards the newcomers until Bobby is forced to choose between the old world and the new. There is interest enough in the story to make this a compelling book. However, what lifts it way above that is the writing. Scott's prose shimmers. This is a book that demands to be savoured. The readers will want to pause and re-read passages for the sheer beauty of the language and imagery.
'The book has much to say about the first Australians and the English who changed their lives irrevocably. While contemporary writers such as Kate Grenville, Richard Flanagan, Andrew McGahan and Alex Miller have all wrestled with related themes, Kim Scott's flawlessly written tale adds both meaning and depth to the Australian writing experience.' Toni Whitmont, Booktopia Chief Editor, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, 5-star review
'Invigorating ... striking ... [Kim Scott] is an outstanding writer who makes the Australian novel speak in ways it hasn’t spoken before.' Stella Clarke, The Australian
'Politically charged and historically astute, [That Deadman Dance] possesses a furious poise and yet is generous of spirit ... lovers of fiction should revel in—should celebrate—this compelling and beautifully constructed novel.' Patrick Allington, ABR
'Scott’s enormous achievement in this fascinating and beautiful book is to register that openness as it once existed and, without judgement or didacticism—and only a quiet nod to the tragedy that was and continued to unfold—to give us a poetic and wise vision of what form our cultural life could still take today. Surely Kim Scott, with That Deadman Dance, has one hand on next year’s Miles [Franklin]?' Martin Shaw, Readings
...see more reviews
About the Author
Born in 1947, Kim Scott's ancestral Noongar country is the south-east coast of Western Australia between Gairdner River and Cape Arid. His cultural Elders use the term Wirlomin to refer to their clan, and the Norman Tindale nomenclature identifies people of this area as Wudjari/Koreng. Kim's professional background is in education and the arts. He is the author of two novels, True Country and Benang, poetry and numerous pieces of short fiction.
Some books are not only a pleasure to read but also a privilege, and so it was with That Deadman Dance. This books is being showered with praise from just about every credible Australian quarter.
Here is what I wrote for Bookseller and Publisher.
Kim Scott won the Miles Franklin more than a decade ago for his novel Benang. His latest, That Deadman Dance, must surely be under consideration for a raft of major prizes.
With mixed Noongar and English heritage, Scott, who is from SW Western Australia, has written a novel of first contact, which traces the initial couple of decades of British presence in a fictional settlement on the coast. The story revolves around Bobby Wabalanginy, his people and the shifting alliances and relationships that both link him into the fledgling colony as much as distance him from it.
The insights into early colonial times in WA are fascinating, especially the section concerning the Yankee whalers. However, it is Noongar people, and their light touch on the landscape, which hold the greatest interest in the book. What starts as a reasonably promising relationship between English and Noongar, gradually deteriorates as the power shifts towards the newcomers until Bobby is forced to choose between the old world and the new.
There is interest enough in the story to make this a compelling book. However, what lifts it way above that is the writing. Scott's prose shimmers. This is a book that demands to be savoured. The readers will want to pause and re-read passages for the sheer beauty of the language and imagery.
The book has much to say about the first Australians and the English who changed their lives irrevocably. While contemporary writers such as Kate Grenville, Richard Flanagan, Andrew McGahan and Alex Miller have all wrestled with related themes, Kim Scott's flawlessly written tale adds both meaning and depth to the Australian writing experience.
Alex Miller, Miles Franklin Award winning author of The Ancestor Game and Lovesong
'A novel of great power and originality. One of the finest I've read in many years. I hope it wins all the prizes and gains Kim the wide recognition he richly deserves. It is a great achievement.
'For a long time I felt sure it was the quiet unfolding of the great Australian tragedy of dispossession, but Kim's vision is not that simple, nor that predictable – nor that closed. He offers us instead something far richer, subtler and fresher than this. The language is magical, often ecstatic, and Kim's passion for it is a gift to the reader – the characters and landscapes are so accurately observed at times that their exquisite detail blends them one with the other.
'That Deadman Dance is beautiful, heartrending and utterly superb. I was enthralled from the first page to the last by the strange urgency of the story; and yet the voice in which the story is told is not urgent but is modest, unhurried, calm and often deeply reflective. And always richly intelligent. While I was reading, I was aware of never having read anything quite like it before.'
Rodney Hall, Miles Franklin Award winning author of Love Without Hope
'Fresh and original in its re-imagining the first years of contact between the Noongar people, British colonists and American whalers, That Deadman Dance explores the lively fascination these people felt for one another. It’s a testimony to Kim Scott’s skill and restraint that, right from the beginning, he leaves the reader’s own awareness of history to cast the long shadow of tragedy over the story. The result is a brilliant feat of understanding—a novel rich in compassion—from a writer bewitched by the thrill of breathing life into the past.'
Thomas Keneally
'That Deadman Dance is an achievement equivalent to that of Alexis Wright. It is an enchanting and authentic book, giving us an insider’s view of Australia before it was Australia. The early collisions between European and Aboriginal (Noongar) cosmologies is calmly narrated, the tragedy of it delineated at a wonderful pace. It is an enormously readable, humane, proud and subtle book, and many Australians will love to get a sense of the experience of intrusion not from a descendant of intruders but from a child of the true possessors.'
ISBN: 9781405040440
ISBN-10: 1405040440
Audience:
General
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 400
Published: 1st October 2010
Dimensions (cm): 23.3 x 15.4
x 3.0
Weight (kg): 0.54
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