Tara June Winch

August, a Wiradjuri woman, has come back to Prosperous House for the burial of her grandfather Albert Gondiwindi . Prosperous was the mission run in the early 1900s by the Reverend Ferdinand Greenleaf, a well-meaning Lutheran who tried to replace the Wiranjuri religion with Christianity, its indigenous foods with European crops, and its traditional culture with that of Europe. The brave and misguided Greenleaf did his best to protect the aboriginal men from murderous attacks by the angry show more whites from the nearby town of Massacre Plains, and the women and girls from rape and abduction.

When Albert, called Poppy by his family, realised he was ill with cancer, he started writing a dictionary to preserve the Wiradjuri language. In his dictionary entries are the histories of his people and his family. They make up one of three narrative threads. The other two are excerpts from Greenleaf's diary, and August's experiences in the present.

August returns to find that a mining company has taken over Prosperous, and her grandmother Elsie is to be evicted. Prosperous was originally built on Wiradjuri lands, so this is a double eviction. August knows that to establish Native title over the Wiradjuri land, and prevent the tin mine, she needs to prove a continuous cultural connection to the land and Poppy's dictionary is the start, if she can find it.

This is a confronting book. It deals with the aboriginal peoples' displacement from their lands, destruction of aboriginal culture and language, massacres by early settlers, the separation of aboriginal children from their parents, the incarceration of aboriginal people, drugs and alcohol. Even so, it ends on a note of hope. show less

"Culture has no armies, does it?"

The Yield is superb. Three separate stories take place, connected in a thousand different ways. There's August, a young woman returning to Australia in the early 21st century after several years abroad, to a past she has consciously left behind. There's her dying grandfather, some time earlier, writing a dictionary of the forgotten words of his (Indigenous) people. And there's a 19th century missionary who finds himself the only defender of those same people show more against an unforgiving populace.

Winch's novel has much to recommend it. (My review is 4.5 stars, but in this case I'm bumping up rather than down due to the sheer force of the novel's compassion.) First, there is her writing style: clear, focused, intrigued by the most minute details, shifting the narrative voice in unison with its characters. The subtle intricacies of the novel deserve mention too, with the concepts from Poppy's dictionary resonating through both the past and present. August still holds out some tendrils of hope for a sister who went missing when they were children; Poppy, unbeknownst to her, seeks his own answers. Reverend Greenleaf attempts to be the saviour of a culture; to August and her family in the present day, he is equally villainous as those he fought against. The Reverend's awakening to the brutality against the Wiradjuri people in the 19th century reflects through Poppy's reminiscences of his awakening to his own culture in the 20th century, which is then reflected in August's attempts to salvage a little of that in the 21st. Winch's plurality of voices also leaves open the possibility of re-interpretation. For example, I don't think Greenleaf is as bad as August does, but then I bring my own biases to the text too.

At the heart of the book, Winch seems to be asking not how do we protect the artifacts of culture (words, letters, tools, much loved homes with chintzy decor) but how we protect the culture underneath? What obligations do each of us have as individuals to our broader clan? And how do we regain what has already been lost? A novel in which one-third of the book is an old man compiling a dictionary sounds inherently dull, but these sections radiate with warmth and heartbreak. I grew up in Wiradjuri country and my eyes lit up when I saw the map on the first page, excited to return to the dusty world of my youth. Winch captures it well, true, but she is also laying bare an entire culture that had existed alongside mine, in my culture's shadow, as it were, and this poignancy imbues every page.

(On a lighter note, the fact that the Australian Winch has lived in Europe for many years, and has an international writing presence, adds a humorous tone for me in her portrayal of some of the details. While the modern-day chapters of the novel are written with descriptive verisimilitude, Winch has to think of her international audience, and thus chooses to over-define such concepts as Aussie Rules, Vegemite, and Lip Smackers. It's a smart choice, and I think it will help protect The Yield against becoming dated. But as someone who grew up in the same time and place as August, I couldn't help but chortle at the narrator in these moments!)

Well worth it. show less

Albert Gondiwindi has died, and his grand-daughter August returns from England to country, to attend his funeral. When she arrives she finds the family getting ready to clear out, having lost a battle to prevent a mining company from forcibly acquiring the land that their people have lived on for generations. As she reconnects with her past, August gets caught up in the fight to stop the miners.

As the story unfolds, we also see instalments of an account by Rev Greenleaf, a Federation-era show more Lutheran missionary, of the treatment he and the local indigenous people received when he tried to establish the settlement that August's people live on. We also see instalments from a dictionary that Albert tried to compile to preserve the language of his people.

These devices are a very clever means of advancing Winch's plot, especially the dictionary. The examples Albert uses to explain words are selected from his own experience, and they fill in the story of his life and the indigenous history of the country. Greenleaf's letter provides the backstory of white settlement in the area and the impact it had on the local indigenous people.

There have been a lot of very impressive novels from Australian authors recently, and this is another excellent one. Winch's story of heart-breaking dispossession and a modern-day fight to reclaim what was lost is both powerful and uplifting. show less

When May and her brother lose their mother, they find themselves separated from family ties, other than the aunt that they end up staying with. Their father has absconded and the mob that their family was part of comes from elsewhere. Growing up with a sense of rootlessness, May embarks on a series of journeys to try and find her father and her family, and understand where she belongs.

Along the way, May has some horrific experiences and major disappointments. It's a strength of this book show more that even these grim scenes are described in a way that preserves May's strength as a person; she does not allow herself to be crushed.

Winch's prose in this novel is extraordinary. She has a very elegant turn of phrase which livens up even mundane scenes, and includes several very precise, yet somewhat surprising metaphors. At times it might feel like she is trying a bit too hard, but that's understandable in a first novel by a writer who was no doubt keen to show what she could do. show less