A tender novel about a migrant mother,God Forgets About the Poor starts winningly in the imperative mood … as if the writer’s mother were bossing him about,offering unsolicited advice and anecdotes about why and how her story should be told. The tale stretches from poverty and civil war – hardships difficult for the mother’s descendants in Australia to imagine – in a remote mountain village on a Greek island. The contrast with 21st century Sydney couldn’t be starker. Villagers confront death as an inescapable reality:they’re bound together by the struggle to survive,the beauty of the landscape,intensity of religious feeling. This imagined Greek village is draped not in nostalgia but a vibrant earthiness,a dignity in the face of conditions that were anything but dignified. Peter Polites is also sensitive to the ways in which migrant stories can be reduced,stereotyped and consumed in mainstream publishing,and is at pains to give voice to the complexity and richness of his subject’s experience.
NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
My Mother,The Spy
Cindy Dobbin&Freda Marnie Nicholls,Allen&Unwin,$34.99
Mercia Masson,journalist and spy,mother of Cindy Dobbin,started working for naval intelligence in 1943 and was later recruited by ASIO to report on the Communist Party and suspected spy rings. But her daughter knew virtually nothing about Mercia’s double life (and she emerges as a cold and distant mother) until after she died. Mind you,Masson had been exposed in 1955 by the Petrov Royal Commission,because of which she claimed to have “lost everything”. For the most part,though,this is a realistic portrait of the humdrum activities of most spy work,all written in the third person from the point of view of the daughter trying to discover who her mother was. Among other things,it asks the question if the clandestine life of operatives is imposed on them by the secrecy of their work,or whether certain types are drawn to it.
Your Name Is Not Anxious
Stephanie Dowrick,Allen&Unwin,$29.99
Frederick Nietzsche famously called his chronic pain “dog”,attempting to control it as you would a pet. Stephanie Dowrick,writer and psychotherapist,addressing the reader – in particular anyone suffering anxiety – directly as “you”,makes a similar point. “You” are in control and this,basically,is a handbook for self-therapy. Chronic anxiety “colonises” the sufferer,making them feel powerless. The task is to “de-colonise” yourself and put anxiety in its place through self-therapy (not ruling out consultative therapy). At the core of this is getting in contact with the total of your being,physical,intellectual and spiritual,contextualising anxiety and,among other things,being kind to yourself. Using case studies and personal history she expertly guides the reader through complex material,making perfect sense.
Shake Some Action
Stuart Coupe,Penguin,$35
Not many people can claim to have saved Richard Ford’s life,but Stuart Coupe can,after the American writer looked the wrong way before crossing the street and was hauled back by Coupe,supposedly in the nick of time. This book is mainly a catalogue of encounters,largely as music writer and manager,in the rock business. And it’s an impressive catalogue,from the spectacular (hanging out backstage with Bruce Springsteen in Paris,not to mention Mick Jagger),to the seedy (observing roadies selecting female fans in the ’70s for an unnamed band’s pleasure). It’s also,to some extent,an incidental retrieval of how journalism has changed over the decades – Coupe recounting his experience of taking copy into the newspaper office and handing it to the editor. Woven into this is his Launceston childhood and the origins of his passion for music writing.
The World of Sugar
Ulbe Bosma,Belknap Press,$63.95
Once,like salt and pepper,the granules extracted from cane known as “white gold” were a luxury only the richest could savour. But from the middle ages a massive industry evolved,to the extent that today the average European consumes 40 kilos of sugar a year (60 in the US). It is an industry with a seriously dark past and a menacing present in terms of world health,WHO declaring sugar-driven obesity a pandemic in 1999. Ulbe Bosma’s history of sugar is also a case study of global capitalism over the centuries,colonial wars,and the deadly slave trade that made the industry possible. It may be a history of a sweet substance,but it has a bitter aftertaste. Like most studies that tell us how rubber,salt and paper changed the world,it’s formulaic. But it’s an interesting account of how sugar seeped into the global digestive system.