2 January 2015

Review #115: Secrets from the Dust by George Hamilton



My rating: 5 of 5 stars




Who doesn't know about that period of history in Australia when the government removed the Aboriginal children from their parents forcefully assimilated to work in the homes of white people as servants. We call it as Stolen Generation.
And I found a real nice poem about a child screaming for her real parents and for her identity.











They had taken away my family!
The child within me cried,
The stolen life, the agony
Of many a year gone by.

The cover up; the pretence.
The falsehood: All those lies.
Didn't they know I'd find out the truth one day,
And now I just ask WHY?

All their words and all their kindness
Can never fill the pain.
Can I ever trust the people,
That I believed in, once again?

The stole me from a lifetime,
My heritage. My home.
My family. My identity.
My spirit all alone.

But to let them win, would be a sin.
To give up would be a crime.
I must search on. I must fight on.
To find what is rightfully mine.

To find my heritage; my family.
My home and identity.
To find the person who was lost to me.
Me… the Aborigine!
---Pauline McLeod, an Aboriginal 

George Hamilton, an English writer charmed as well as intrigued our minds and soul with his debut story, Secrets From The Dust that features that Stolen Generation period in Australia.

Synopsis:
Snatched from her family during the 1960s, Margaret, a headstrong Aboriginal girl, is fostered by the McDonalds, in the Australian outback, under the government sponsored assimilation policies. She stubbornly fights to maintain her culture until she can escape or her real parents find her. But soon she discovers that she is growing to like many of the customs and material possessions of her captors, throwing her into an identity crisis, which rips another fault line through her world.

By the time she grows into a beautiful young woman, she has already suffered the disappointments of unrequited love and a forbidden desire. Encouraged to hide behind the identity of a Southern European, the highly charged political environment of the time, and her love for a political activist, forces her to confront her true identity.


This is the story of a teenage Aboriginal girl, named, Margaret, who was forcefully removed from her 'mob' into an Aboriginal girls care home, where the dreadful situations made her lost and heart-broken. Eventually she is adopted into the McDonalds household and soon she adapts the role of a farmer. But she is constantly facing an identity and cultural crisis/ clash and also every passing day, her heart swells up with longing for her real parents.

This is a work of fiction, yet the author told the story from an authentic Aboriginal child's perspective with raw starkness that provokes our mind to think about the curse of a monopolizing society in our history. The author represented her story from the girl's narration, which is deep, sad and interesting and I immediately connected with the protagonist.

The author depicted his characters apart from the protagonist with brilliance, some will fill our mind with spite and hate and some will simply make us cry out with pain. Moreover the author captured all the symptoms faced by an Aboriginal child correctly and justifies the whole situation.

The author even took us back in that era when monopoly and domination ruled over every thing and once gain my heart filled up with shame because of such an weakness in our society. Moreover, I liked the way the author unfolded his whole story like in a rhythm.

The story made me cry and feel the emotional ups and downs of such a child's life and the author addressed all those negative issues faced by that teenager with enough compassion and delicately, thus touching us deeply in our soul and mind.

Verdict: Do read this story where the author made it a heart-touching and deeply moving tale out of an unforgettable era in our history.

Courtesy: Thanks to the author, George Hamilton, for giving me an opportunity to read and review his debut novel. 
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Author Info:
George Hamilton likes to know what’s going on around the world, to delve into the customs and practices of different cultures, and this is often a feature of his novels. His tales are based on people's intense personal or family dramas, with major social or political events strongly impacting their story. In addition to World Literature, he also writes multi-genre novels which include: Historical, Suspense/Thriller, and Contemporary. He currently lives in London, England.
Visit him here 

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