Mullumbimby is an award winning contemporary fiction by Australian Indigenous author Melissa Lushenko. Like the main character in the book Melissa has Bundjalung heritage and lived on a property in this area.

The story is about Jo Breen who has moved with her teenage daughter to a twenty acre property in the Byron Bay hinterlands after her divorce. Her life is full of hard work but she is delighted to own a piece of her traditional country and to be living with her horses. Things get complicated when she meets the handsome Two Boy who is passionately pursuing a landrights claim through the tribunal, causing division and friction between the various Bundjalung family groups.

The writing is gritty, sardonic and humorous. I enjoyed Jo as a main character. She is sassy, smart and cynical. If you don’t like swearing, don’t read this book, but I loved it as it reflects the reality of how people speak. I also enjoyed the use of language as even though I am from the other side of the country there are many familiar words and expressions. This could be an uncomfortable read for dugai (whitefellas) as it doesn’t pull any punches, but in a good way that calls out bullshit and colonialism where she sees it. The audio narration by Tasma Walters was brilliant. I’d be keen to read another of Lushenko’s books. 4.5 stars for me. ( )

At times cliche and the resolutions for some of the plot twists too neat, so nice to have a novel with an apparent indig voice. I found myself ploughing through the pages eagerly riding the roller coaster of Jo's (protagonists) predicament. I can understand the criticisms of other reviewers, but really enjoyed the narrative and the characters. ( )

A beautiful, brilliant novel that provides insight into the life of a contemporary Indigenous woman, raising her daughter on the lands of her Bandjalung ancestors in northern New South Wales.

Melissa Lucashenko is the daughter of Indigenous and European parents. As a child, she could pass for white, but as an adult she has committed herself to the culture and values of Indigenous Australians. In doing so she challenges the assumed normality of whiteness. Her major character in Mullumbimby, Jo Breen, faces the same problems as many single mothers; coping with her teenage daughter, working to make ends meet, and deciding if she dares fall in love with a man again. Yet her perspective is shaped by what she learned from the Indigenous aunt who raised her. At her core, she views the world from an Indigenous perspective which shapes her values and her dreams. Her views and Lukashenko’s do not romanticize Indigenous life or view it as uniformly tragic. They simply do not take European institutions and world views as the norm.

Jo has bought a small, neglected farm near Mullumbimby. She is working hard to restore it for herself, her daughter, her siblings, and her beloved horses. For her the land and its quietness give her a welcome space, away from the clamor of other people. Her daughter, Ellen, however, has just outgrown the sweet nature of her childhood and turned into a complaining adolescent, constantly blaming and challenging her mother. Jo struggles with how to protect and nurture her in this new phase.

Jo’s life is full of crises and tragedy as well as hope and joy. Although she had never wavered in her sense of herself as Indigenous, she moves into a stronger sense of belonging to an Indigenous community. Her aunt taught her the fundamental spirituality of her people. She can meditate into a still listening place, similar to that of Buddhists and Quakers. When she listens, she can understand what she needs to know from the world around her. Her understanding of her world is neither “magical realism” nor the one mapped by white scientists.

Understandably, anger at what the Europeans have done to her and her people runs deep in Jo. She is quick to explode over the unfairness of white domination and to blame whites for her losses. Generally, she tries to keep the white establishment at a distance. Her anger does not stop her, however, from having white individuals as friends, though she may grumble about how their whiteness limits their understanding. At times Jo feels lonely, but she has a group of close friends and two siblings who share parts of her life.

When a handsome, educated, Indigenous man enters Jo’s life, she is slow to trust him or her love for him. He obviously loves her, but he is very wrapped up in a Native Land lawsuit over some land in the area. The angry and even violent conflict among Indigenous people over these issues was something I had never realized before reading this book. At times he disappoints her, leaving her and the reader unsure if he is going to remain in her and her daughter’s lives.

In Mullumbimby, Lucashenko has written an excellent and enjoyable novel, one that will hold readers’ attention and provide new insights into what it can mean to be an Indigenous Australian today. She has accomplished this in part by following closely what Jo is thinking and doing. Although the book is not written in first person, she uses the mix of languages that Jo would have used. Frankly I often found the prose difficult to follow. As a non-Australian, I stumbled over Indigenous words and unfamiliar plants and animals. I would have done better if I had realized that there was a glossary of in the back. (Reading the novel as an ebook, I didn’t examine it as carefully as I do hard copy.) Still I am glad that Lucashenko chose to use this mix of languages. It helped me move away from the English I assume is universal and into a world where I am the outsider.
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Read 2015, favourite. ( )