Reviews

Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko

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mel_thereadingaffair's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

incrediblemelk's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I borrowed this from the library on two separate one-week loans. I had to take it back at the start of the first loan period and then I’ve completely inhaled the remaining 2/3 on another one-week period.

I am fascinated by stories of early Australian colonisation because to me they represent such a bittersweet moment of missed opportunity of goodwill on the behalf of the land owners and the squandering of that goodwill by white settlers.

Tom Petrie is such an interesting character because he was historically an initiated Yagara man, and he spoke the language from childhood. He understood Aboriginal law and was respected by the landowners of Magandjin, yet he was inescapably white and held a position of great privilege within the emerging colonial society.

Lucashenko is quite canny in showing the way that Tom is caught between these two cultures and the tragedy that he will always have to come down on the side of white people rather than that of his Yagara brothers.

Winona and Johnny were also two fascinating characters in that Winona represents the modern Blak radical and Johnny is someone who’s an earnest seeker, trying to understand who he is and making lots of mistakes.

At times I found Winona very unlikeable in her political purism and her unwillingness to accept goodwill. Her own struggles with mental illness aren’t a major focus of the book and kind of melt away at the end, but ultimately she and Johnny reach a rapprochement that feels authentic to both of their characters.

Mulanyin was a wonderfully vivid character, too: so full of emotion and so deeply connected to his Country and people. But like Winona he is also a frequently dogmatic and inflexible person in his efforts to be staunch. I don’t know if Lucashenko deliberately set out to connect Winona and Mulanyin in this way, but I liked that they are such similar personalities.

Mulanyin is also a tragic hero. What I find so morbidly urgent about these stories that imagine early colonisation is the horror for the landowners of seeing your whole beautiful world being stolen and desecrated in your own lifetime, and struggling to hold on to hope in the future.

The Elders at the time may have hoped for a conclusive defeat of the dagai (I have Jane Harrison’s novel The Visitors on my shelf, which I think might contain some of these debates) so life could resume as it always had, but the terrible fate of the following generations would be to witness their people’s genocide and to try to survive it.

That’s why Edenglassie is a hopeful and moving book, because it testifies to that hard-won survival of the people and their cultural memory. Mulanyin’s defiant self-determination cost him his life; but Winona can learn from her Granny Eddie’s ways – learned pragmatically through hard experience, like Eddie’s great-grandmother Nita – to honour her people cleverly and strategically rather than lashing out in rage and revenge.

I’m feeling so emotional after finishing this book, thinking about the people around the world struggling to survive genocide and to throw off the yoke of colonial capitalism. Like Johnny I want to learn and be mindful, but unlike him I can never really belong to this Country where I live. Like Tom Petrie I have to do my best to be mindful of my unearned privilege and actively seek to do good.

Content Warnings

hayleyab's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

zoli's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative inspiring sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

caitlinmhp's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

hayleehackenberg's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

indoorg1rl's review

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4.0

When Mulanyin met the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumbered the British. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona met Dr Johnny. Together they cared for obstinate centenarian Granny Eddie, and sparks flew, but not always in the right direction.

I loved the educational side of this, as I had no idea of Brisbane’s history, including its ‘Edenglassie’ name. It was captivating to see how different life was for the First Nations people in 1855, and yet we could still draw parallels to Grannie Eddie and Winona’s days in 2024.

I was enamoured by the scene where Mulanyin’s whole life as a man, fisherman, singer, and dancer was assessed by his saltwater people when he proposed marriage to Nita. It was fascinating to see them evaluating the opportunity that was open to him while at the same time closing another by making his life choice. We oftentimes don’t realise that when we say ‘yes’ to something, we say ‘no’ to another at the same time.

This was a beautifully written, educational piece of Brisbane’s story, complete with riveting banters between Winona and Dr Johnny (which made me chortle out loud!), and Granny Eddie’s antics as the cherry on top. Loved it.