Books and Manuscripts

The history we were taught is not necessarily the whole truth, often not even close to it:

History is an old tart, plaything of the rich and famous. Throughout the ages she's seen all the great people with their pants down or their skirts up, and all those who stood on other's shoulders to appear tall, and all those made to kneel so as not to.

She's had a hard life—abused by clerics of every stripe, mercilessly ravished by despots and presidents, royally fucked by kings and queens alike, wooed by lesser mortals and buggered senseless by every victorious army from Rameses' charioteers to Netanyahu's troops. Next time you see a battle scene look in the background for her, stripped naked and bent over a gun barrel waiting to be written by the victors.

But getting to know old tarts can be a rewarding experience. Speak kindly to them and you never know what you will learn.

My first book 'Under the Banyan Tree - In Search of the Lost History of Australia's North Coast' was published by Boolarong Press about two and a half years ago now and has done pretty well, considering its limited distribution and minimal publicity. I've had very good feedback, all positive and without anything negative - there's certain to have been people that didn't like it, they just haven't told me.
I hope the next one, 'Football: A Bloody and Murthering Practise' does as well - Boolarong seem to have great faith in it and are putting it out nationwide. Be good to get it across the ditch into Aotearoa NZ, but we'll have to wait and see about that one. It's due out in Australia on 10th March although it's available in some stores now I believe. In case anyone's interested, the title 'A Bloody and Murthering Practise' is a quote by a 16th C Puritan (hence the 'Murthering' instead of 'Murdering') named Philip Stubbs who complained endlessly about people playing football.

I have another book, a fiction called 'The God Gamble', complete and looking for a home. Boolarong don't do fiction, or so they tell me, so it's currently out there in limbo. There's another one that I'm part into called 'The Life and Times of John Rit', but he was set aside for football and I can't get back to him just yet because another subject has grabbed my interest.

Smallpox.

It's not a subject that I'm sure I want to write about, but the more I research it the more it becomes a story that has to be told. In Indigenous Australia between about 50 - 90% of most tribes were wiped out by smallpox in the late 18th and early 19th Cs, a situation that mirrored the experiences in the Americas and Sth Africa. In the Americas it was deliberately introduced to empty the continent of native populations and ease the way for settlers - the question is 'did the same happen in Australia?'

It's horrible that it happened, and even horribler to think that it could have been deliberate.
I'll keep you posted.