We Come With This Place by Debra Dank
Memoirs, Echo Publishing, $29. On the same subject : ‘New way of life’: How two refugees adapt to WA.99, paperback
Debra Dank’s warm and poetic memoir invites you to another place and time. A Gudanji/Wakaja writer and educator, Dank writes vividly not only about his own life at home and abroad, but also about his family, their ceremonies and stories, right from the start. He took us to a cave in Garranjini in the Northern Territory, for example, whose walls were painted by generations of Gudanji women to show future grandchildren where the water was. Dank’s grandmother found the cave while fleeing colonialism; decades later, the Dank kids visit to touch up the marks, which they now have tattooed on their skin.
How does it feel to have so much history and future that binds you to your country? We Come With This Place is an act of generosity, which should not be taken lightly. – Steph Harmon
Do As I Say by Sarah Steel
True crime, Pan Macmillan, $34. To see also : Gov. Lamont uses abortion rights as a business recruiting tool for CT.99, paperback
If you’re a fan of the popular podcast Steel Let’s Talk About Sects, you’ll love the first book, which expands on the show’s premise about why people end up in cults. It avoids the well-traveled path of true crime – repeating the scariest stories – and instead is structured around common elements in survivor testimonies. The survivors tell Steel about runaway groups like Gloriavale, Zendik Farm, The Welcomed Consensus, and Chung Moo Quan. One of the survivors, Russell, thought the latter was an ordinary martial arts school, and nearly lost both of his hands while there.
Steel compiled a list of interesting and potentially helpful red flag behaviors – from manipulative and isolating language, to “love bombs” and sleep deprivation – that are used to coerce and manipulate even the most conscientious of us. – Sian Cain
The Family Meal Solution by the One Handed Cooks
Cooking, Australian Penguin, $39. This may interest you : 6 reasons to use a travel agent when planning your next family vacation.99, paperback
The authors, nutritionists and teachers (Allie Gaunt, Jessica Beaton and Sarah Buckle respectively) behind One Handed Cooks have yet to write a cookbook with Family Meal Solution. While there are plenty of kid-friendly recipes with trade-ins and suggestions for fussy eaters, vegetarians and allergies in them, what they’ve really developed is a strict system of food preparation and kitchen management geared towards saving money, reducing waste, and sometimes saving time. While the charts, tables, and emphasis on planning ahead may seem daunting to follow in full, even those who embrace chaos will benefit from the cherry-picking advice from this book. While I’m psychologically incapable of being a food cook, I’ve started implementing some of their hacks – and I don’t even have kids. – Alyx Gorman
Denizen by James McKenzie Watson
Fiction, Vikings, $32.99, paperback
Nothing is scarier than a queer child, and McKenzie Watson – a nurse by day – writes it very well. This is his first novel after winning the 2021 Penguin literary prize and just a few pages to Denizen, you can see why he won.
Nine-year-old Parker is prone to tantrums and violent outbursts; he had decided early on that “something in my brain is faulty”. He is cold and cruel to other children, and his “emotional battle” with his mother spills over into an oppressive mind game. “One day,” he said, “you will have children. And when you do, I hope they destroy you as you have destroyed me.”
As he ages, Parker is haunted by his behavior; when she decides to return to the small town in NSW where she grew up for a reunion with friends, it becomes clear how haunted she is. The second half was weaker than the incredible, horror-inflected start, but Denizen is well worth your time. – SC
The All of It: A Bogan Rhapsody by Cadance Bell
Memoir, Penguin, $34.99, paperback
Growing up in Mudgee, NSW, Bell knew from a young age that he was transgender, but did not discover the language that captured his identity until adulthood. Her humorous and often heartwarming memoir harks back to a lively country town childhood, navigating restrictive gender norms and going through puberty while secretly trying on her mother’s bra and buying Dolly magazines at Bi-Lo. In her 20s, she survived depression and dysphoria, before finding the online trans community, finding happiness and love. Bell is intelligent and honest, and I think we’ll be reading a lot more from him. If you like Priestdaddy Patricia Lockwood, you’ll love this too. – SC
Jesustown by Paul Daley
Fiction, Allen & Unwin, $32.99, paperback
From its opening page, Jesustown promises the lure of irresistible personal drama: grisly tragedy, media scandal, and a broken marriage, all tied in one messy knot. But the novel quickly expands and deepens as the self-loathing central character Patrick Renmark, whose reputation as a shrewd historian precedes him, flees London for the titular destination, a former remote Indigenous mission in northern Australia. Here she faces uncomfortable memories of her past and the complicated task of sifting through – and writing about – her grandfather’s legacy as the city’s alleged white savior. Daley’s extraordinary nonfiction work on colonial violence and indigenous dispossession informs this novel as it grapples with themes of shame, redemption, intergenerational trauma, and the question of who can write history. This is a sensitive and seeking exploration, beautifully written. – Lucy Clark
What the Fuck is This by Celeste Mountjoy
Graphic novel (nonfiction), Pan Macmillan, $32.99, hardback
Of all the eerie aesthetic trends the last decade has proliferated – pastel pinks, marble furnishings, Kinfolk – the line-drawing trend is perhaps the worst: abstract black-and-white scribbles of faces, bodies, and flowers subdue millennial living rooms everywhere to their barrenness. artistic vision. Above the commotion emerged Celeste Mountjoy, whose viral illustration as a teenager by the name of @filthyratbag uprooted the scribbles of her contemporaries: always smarter, more sour and – yes – dirtier.
Now 22, he has released his first book, an extensive graphic autobiography where nothing is safe: teenage delusions, online dating, crushing anxiety and crushing grief. Mountjoy casts his overly cynical, often self-effacing, and always humorous views for every misadventure until they mingle into a soup of existential exhaustion – an accurate depiction of what it’s like to exist on the internet, and more broadly, to exist in a constant state. from natural disasters. – Michael Sun
Holy Woman by Louise Omer
Memoir, Scribe, paperback, $29.99
As a teenager in an agnostic household, Omer shocked his family when he made his first forays into Pentecostalism, joining a church on the outskirts of Adelaide. Taken by the community, he rose through the ranks to become a preacher and married a fellow believer. In his early 20s, the marriage ended; Disillusioned by what religion has taught him about a woman’s place, Omer goes on a pilgrimage to find feminist religion, traveling to the Mexican basilica, the Swedish branch of Hillsong and the Moroccan mosque.
But what could be an Eat Pray Love-style travel record is furious (and beautifully written), because Omer recognizes a fallacy in its premise: monotheistic religion is inherently patriarchal and will never be feminist in practice. The attractive and intelligent women Omer meets interpret the scriptures to carve out a space for themselves – but always face great opposition and threats. – SC
