Australian Memoirs

I'm a whitefella who has never met Bruce Pascoe, but I’ve heard a lot about him. For the past few years, I have worked across Gippsland in the field of Aboriginal cultural heritage, and many of the people I meet mention his name. Experience has led me to try and dodge most of these conversations, knowing that our discussion will probably satisfy neither party, but I’m not having much luck. People want to talk about Pascoe, and often it is unpleasant. I have heard him described as a charlatan and worse, usually by those who have not met him, spoken with him, or read his work. Most of these critics are whitefellas, preoccupied with questioning or discrediting his Aboriginal heritage.

I had never been to Adelaide in my life when I arrived for an interview that, as it turned out, would result in my spending the next twenty-five years in South Australia. The early November heat was too much for my Melbourne best suit, and I was carrying my coat when I walked gratefully into a city pub for a post-interview beer. In the bar – air conditioned down to a level threatening patrons with cryogenic suspension – I tried Southwark and then West End, finding both just drinkable, and lingered in front of a wall poster about the Beaumont children, by that time missing for nine or ten months.