This was not what I was expecting.

More than a memoir in that it refers to selected academic studies to support anecdotally based opinion, it sits at times uneasily between the two genres of memoir and journalism.

The story is good, though at times brutal, dealing with the intergenerational abuse of one generation to the next across four generations of Morton men raised in the way far out outback. At times I paused, contemplated and savoured his words:
“Then there is, of course, the not insignificant matter of what those astonishing distances do to the very idea of right and wrong. They bend light around the truth ... manage even to erase it.“

Speaking of how the father’s behaviour damages the son, whose behaviour then damages their son, Morton writes, “Desolation moved like a slinky through them all.” ( )

This was a brilliantly written book, going between a personal narrative and a range of facts and statistics about how the key issues in the lives of Rick and his family impact so many others in Australia. Enjoyable and important, especially reminding us that not everyone in our country has the same “fair go” we pride ourselves on. ( )