Novel
Wild Cat Falling
Mudrooroo · 1965
Synopsis
A nameless young man, who sees himself as the best of the bodgies, comes out of Fremantle prison after eighteen months for petty offences; prison gave him a roof and three meals. He finds his mother, Jessie, who urges him to live like a white man, and thinks back to the Noongar camps where he grew up. On his very first day of freedom, he meets June, a psychology student, to whom he says he is nineteen; she invites him to the university cafeteria, where her friends treat him as an experimental subject. He soon decides to steal a car.
Context
The novel was published in 1965 in Sydney by Angus and Robertson, with a preface by Mary Durack, presented by the publisher as the first novel by a writer of Aboriginal blood published in Australia; Penguin reissued it in England as early as 1966. A narrative in three parts, it has been read as a form of blues. Alan Becher adapted it for the stage in 1992, and the French translation appeared in 2010. In July 1996, an article by Victoria Laurie and a statement by the Aboriginal association Dumbartung cast doubt on the author's Noongar identity.
Who it is for
One hundred and thirty-one pages in English, in the first person; the book is short and reads in one sitting.
Prizes and reception
Hailed on publication as a first in the country's letters, a standing that the 1996 controversy left in suspense.
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