If you have a burning desire to read some historical fiction, I’d recommend “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden as a shining example thereof.

What are the problems?

1. Lots of digression/ babbling/ fillers sections of prose. It seems like a lot of it was inserted to give the book length. If the point of this was to give us an idea of the life of Australian aboriginals, the author could have supplied details to that effect. Instead, we get the author’s imagined internal dialogues of a central character that may well have been schizophrenic.

2. Why would Blackburn choose an inveterate liar to characterize the experience of a white living amongst the Aborigines? Were there no other whites that lived among them during that time? One thing that was clear was that there were many different types of whites to be found in contact with the Aborigines at this time. Could we not have seen these Native Australians from the perspective of government officials? Or railroad workers?

3. On the whole, the characters were very poorly developed and one dimensional– and especially those of the Aborigines. This might have been another vehicle to show us the customs that a reader might be intersted to know, such as language/ customs/ family structure.

4. If this work was supposed to have been historical fiction dedicated to understanding Daisy Bates, the author could have taken artistic license to develop the character of Daisy Bates as it might have been seen through the eyes of an Aborigine. Or several of the government officials with whom she came into contact.

Again: If you are looking for good historical fiction, don’t look for it in this book.
Rating: 2 / 5

In spite of the two star review already posted on this book, I found it to be a great book. Really well written…lovely prose…insightful…made me want to know more about Daisy and so I went into research in greater depth. I think this book would make an excellent study for any women’s literature course.
Rating: 4 / 5

The author is highly imaginative and tells a lot about her own life in this mish mash. We never learn much about Daisy Bates. the author writes ” her body shudders like a dying rabbit and her new husband wakes and stares at his new wife…” But the author is really describing her own childhood dream of an old man with his legs wrapped around her neck!!! Blackburn’s “very personal interpretation” of the life of Daisy Bates seems to include Blackburn trying to overcome some of her own childhood traumas and problems with men. If little is known about Daisy Bates’ feelings towards her husband, I’d rather have that than a lot of silly conjecture and fantasy. The prose is very good, very flowery and high flown, but it doesn’t help tell the story of Daisy Bates. Like other reviewers, I will have to research Daisy, yes even after reading her “biog”. It didn’t feel balanced at all.
Rating: 2 / 5