Book Info
When the Curlew Lies
Thirty-seven years after pioneering a school in the Australian Outback, B.J. Pettit returns to the desolate, fly-ridden sheep station known as Weilmoringle to find out what has happened in the lives of his first students. Heading the list is the extraordinary Aboriginal boy, Dougie Orcher, whose own lessons had given him an 'eye for the bush' and brought him to appreciate that the forbidding terrain wasn't as indifferent as it appeared.
Accompanying him on the personal journey is a son, Kelly, who is more interested in reconnecting with him than with his past.
Pettit spares no one, least of all himself, in this study of father-son relationships. Now a Canadian citizen, he draws further comparisons between Canadian and Australian questions of identity and worries about the future of this corner of the Outback. Weilmoringle is experiencing profound changes resulting from a declining wool market and new High Court decisions favouring native title.
Both a travel book and a personal journey, When the Curlew Cries is the continuing study of a unique bi-cultural community.
Exerpt from Novel
However unintentional, Americans had a way of assuming superiority. They were a self-indulgent lot sometimes, and possessive. I'd found living in the country next to them meant being constantly on guard to ward off their impositions, but since Canada allowed itself to be so economically and defensively dependent who could blame Americans for thinking Canada's destiny was ultimately with them? And in spite of earnest and obvious resistance to annexation and all things American, Canadians put themselves in an inferior position by showing they could be bought. I hadn't found it a very secure station.
Was it American domination that made Canadians so apologetic? Someone bumped into you, you apologized. I'm sorry to bother you but you're standing on my foot. Oh, did you have a ticket in the lottery I just won? I'm sorry.
I didn't recall having to be apologetic growing up in Australia and I was, after all, just another colonial. I was a cocky little bastard with a healthy self-assurance and a magnanimous loyalty to the country. There was nothing I wouldn't forfeit for Australia and nothing I needed to feel sorry for. But that was a few decades ago and my absence had been long. Did Americans now view Australians like Canadians, as having much in common with them, enough to make it illogical not to want to merge identities?
Each time I returned to Australia the people appeared more docile. The swagger was gone. Somehow, they were wearing down, looking for more comfort and seeming a little more complacent in their concern for the future. Perhaps, as the old-timers said, the small population couldn't absorb the staggering hordes of immigrants, couldn't understand why they were coming or what they wanted. There was no quick way to assimilate newcomers or to make them care deeply enough to put the country first.
Reviews
"The Weilmoringle Kid, and now When The Curlew Cries, tell of the tragic decline of Outback Australia. Pettit imprints on your mind the joys, problems and heartbreak of the Australian black and white population, which is about to enter a new century in history. Always entertaining and well written, the books subtly expose the decay of the 'bush' and its people. While Pettit yearns for a lost youth, he is master at portraying what was and now is. Both books were a damn good read." Bob Lunney - Australian Author (Fifteen Hundred Down The Murranji).
"Each wonderfully written chapter tells its own story of a past and present that clash within the writer's mind." Harbour City Star - JoAnne Keating (Sept. 1999)
"I was amazed at the understanding of Aboriginal rights and situation." Grahame Keast - School Principal, Australia.
"Pettit's ode to the Australian verandah is positively lyrical." Times/Colonist - (Anne Moon - Feb 2000)
