I knew nothing for sure about this book, going in.

Actually, that’s not quite true. I knew it was by Claire G Coleman, so having read Terra Nullius I had a reasonable assumption that it would involve something very clever and probably heart-wrenching as a commentary on Indigenous Australians.

(If you haven’t read Terra Nullius yet, and you’re Australian, you really really really should.)

I also assumed that it would be a really awesome story, because it was her.

The other main assumption I made was from the title. I’m not the world’s greatest poetry reader, but I did study war poetry in Year 12 (our teacher gave us the choice of what themes to look at: we chose war and death. We were 16, what did you expect?). So I can recognise a Wilfred Owen allusion when it’s waved in my face.

Putting those two things together and I could hazard a guess at the general ideas Coleman would be broaching. And if you’ve read Terra Nullius you can guess what sort of clever things Coleman is going to do with the ideas of war, and Indigenous soldiers. If not… look, both of these are the sort of books that really reward the reader having faith in the author, and going in with as few spoilers as possible. It is incredibly worthwhile. So go away, read it (them), then come back, because there are spoilers below.

Basically, Claire Coleman has written another brilliant book for today’s Australia and compels non-Indigenous Australians to think about the past and present realities for our Indigenous sisters and brothers. Also, it’s bloody brilliant story that’s going to work as a story whether you know the history behind it all or not.

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