Andrew McGahan (1966–2019)

A beautiful, timeless, gothic cathedral of a novel. Andrew McGahan, who passed away tragically young this year (2019), remains an underrated Australian novelist. While he is better known for his sardonic novellas capturing Queensland so well and - to younger readers - for his YA fiction, this is McGahan's great work.

Set during the Keating era and the passing of Native Title legislation (with flashbacks to the long dry years of the Menzies era), The White Earth is a story of our country's history, of a brewing war over that same history (a war that, in the 15 years since the novel was published, has erupted), and of the lies we tell to replace an unpalatable truth.

However, far from being didactic, McGahan grounds his examination in young William's discovery of his new world, Kunal Station, the farm where he and his recently-widowed mother have been taken in. The farm teems with gothic experiences and strange characters navigating their own paths. Importantly, the author also allows all of his characters to speak their truths, questioning that strange feeling (which I know only too well, as the descendant of a white family 200 years on this soil) of being the possessor of a stolen land while also having a genuine longstanding connection to the land oneself.

It is a novel of questions rather than answers, an earnest look at the challenges of land ownership, of Native Title, of family, and of history itself.… (more)

Loved this book and days later, I'm still thinking about it. It eludes genre-classification and all I can compare it to is Stephen King's works - a thriller that is real and realistic in all but one little aspect which changes everything. If someone were to describe the plot to me, I would have brushed it aside as not my thing and would never have read it. So I urge you to give this one a go even if the blurb sounds kind of weird to you. An interesting point is that this book has a lot masculine features - the rugged setting, the ambitious ruthless billionaire, the dangerous mountaineering... yet the main character is a woman who is rather sensitive (don't worry there is no mushy gushy stuff here). The contrast works really well - it balances the story but also adds to the feeling of disturbance. Highly recommend.… (more)

On a tropical, volcanic island, in a hospital for the insane, lives and works a young orphan, a mute and sensitive girl, believed to be of limited intelligence. She is given simple tasks in the hospital and seems to be well-liked by most. There are a handful of ‘insane’ patients she considers 'friends' known only as the witch, the virgin, the duke, and the archangel. One day, a new patient. 'the foreigner', is brought in, in what seems a permanent comatose state, and he is housed in the only space available in a remote spot in the hospital. He is more or less ignored until the orphan 'senses' him and he begins to communicate telepathically with her.

Told from the perspective of the young orphan girl, this is a intriguing story that draws the reader in quickly. What starts out concretely in a dark, decaying hospital soon moves into the fantastic as the foreigner communicates with her and all manner of strange phenomena begins to happen.

This is an ambitious and thought-provoking book about everything from consciousness, mental illness and the power of the mind to environmental issues, but I did find it a bit too long even at 327 pages perhaps because there is so much going on in the book.… (more)

Andrew McGahan's last novel before his death from cancer in 2019 is a ripper.
He tells the tale of a super-wealthy man who is the only person to have climbed the world's highest mountain. (No, it's not Everest, you'll have to read the book).
Bring into the tale a woman with a curious past, where she once wrote a book about the "presences" that could be found in natural phenomena, ignoring the fact that LSD and cocaine were useful in discovering and dealing with them, and it becomes clear that the Rich Man wants to clear his new, fabulously extravagant home of all pesky, potential "presences".
It doesn't quite work out as he might hope it will.
The author notes in a preface that he was rushed to complete this novel, and there are some passages that really could do with some editing.
But, all in all, it's a rollicking adventure, and so different to anything else he published.
It's worth reading, but not as good as 'The Good Earth', 'Last Drinks' or 'Praise'.
Vale, Andrew. Thank you.… (more)