#Stella Prize 2019 shortlist Melissa Lucashenko
Shortlisted books: 2/6
- Author: Melissa Lucashenko (1967)
- Title: Too Much Lip
- Published: 2018
- Trivia: shortlisted 2019 Stella Prize ($ 50.000 prize!)
- List of Challenges 2019
- Monthly plan
- #StellaPrize
- #AWW2019
- @AusWomenWriters
Quickscan:
- Kerry Salter returns to her hometown of Durrongo
- …to bid farewell to her dying grandfather.
- She becomes embroiled in
- …the dramas of her dysfunctional family.
Conclusion:
- This book was difficult to enter…
- ..narrative and the characters.
- The family relations were hard to sort out because there are so
- …many people to keep track of!
- Great-grandparents (‘Chinky’ Joe, Gran Ava)
- Grandparents (Pop Joe, Granny Ruth)
- Mother-father (Pretty Mary and Charlie)
- Brothers-sisters “Koala” Ken, Donna, “Black Superman”, Kerry
- Aunts, uncles, nephews and cousins…
Weak point: Book is not filled with richly crafted sentences.
Strong point:
- An emotional mood/tone cannot be measured
- …but it can be spoken!
- The writer uses a specific choice of words
- slang (“truesgod!”)
- local phrases, (Norco butter, plate of hammer and onion)
- misspellings ( wanna, granny is ‘ere ta help’)
- profane expressions
- …that you can imagine are in all the chapters!
- These word choices express the lifestyle, viewpoint and
- dysfunctionality of the Satler Aboriginal family.
Last Thoughts:
- Amid all the bizarre images, voices and actions
- in this book with some very complex characters
- we see passion, love and forgiveness in the Satler family.
- Language is the culture. (Aboriginal)
- If you lose your language you’ve lost your culture.
- Lucashenko manages to find a balance
- between emotions and language
- …that really impressed me!
5 Comments
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NancyElin 
Fascinating Nancy. I found this book engaging from the get-go, although I agree that you do have to work for a little while to get the characters and their relationships with each other down pat. What I loved was the writing – I didn’t have a problem with the sentences – and I loved the reality of it. These were fully rounded characters (except for Jim Buckley perhaps!) which I liked.
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It takes me some time to immerse myself in the world of Aboriginals and their rich ancestry/mythology and the racism they endured.
The title made me laugh even before I read the book! My mother used to say to me: “Don’t give me any of your lip!” So in chapter 2 the title emerged ” Too much lip, this little gin…”
I didn’t know what gin is…but now I do! (slang Aboriginal woman)
You learn something new every day!
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Ah, I understand Nancy. She used indigenous words like dugai that I had to work out from context but the world want to hear for me to get into.
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