Welou, My Brother by Faith Bandler (1984)

This one shares the quiet spirit of its predecessor, Wacvie, but has considerably less dramatic arc. Bandler delights in coolly celebrating domestic detail, in a straightforward way, emphasizing whatever is uppermost in her characters' minds and most important to them. It is fictionalised in a specific sense, that of being formed to read like a novel. My feeling is that it is not fictionalised in the sense of being an invention of facts. It is the story of Bandler's brother over a few years of his childhood in country northern New South Wales, living with his Islander father, Wacvie, his mixed race mother, Ivy, several brothers and his new little sister Lefan - I'm wondering if she may be the author. Bandler speaks lovingly of the family and their community and their interactions, helping each other, lending each other horses and workers so as to keep their farms running; children staying with other families to pursue education or work, or to provide the childless with company and assistance. There is a feeling to this one that it may have originally been intended to be part of something longer; it ends oddly and unimpactfully at a point where so much more could have continued happening. Perhaps Bandler tired of it, and it was seen to be complete enough as it stood to publish? And there is the issue of the lack of dramatic arc - really the small domestic details are all there is of this - but I would contend they are all there needs to be, they are strangely satisfying in themselves. My criticism of Wacvie stands for this one too, though - there is an emphasis on dignity in these characters which means that the salty bloodrush of life, our human equivocation, is not deeply pictured, though some small nips of it are there.