REVIEW: Growing Up in Country Australia

I have had the privilege to experience three different Australian lifestyles – country, city and coast – so I was excited to receive Growing Up in Country Australia to review. I thought I’d be able to relate to many of the stories, and while I could to some of them, it was eye-opening just how sheltered and unaware of others’ circumstances and situations I was because they were different from my own, even in the same country town.

Editor Rick Morton (Photo by Perry Duffin).

That is the power of collections like these – they create greater understanding, compassion, awareness and a sense of togetherness.

I was wonderfully surprised at the nuance and literary depth of these stories. This is not a collection of rollicking yarns or humorous bushfire stories. The various authors explore poverty, domestic violence, boarding school, racial inequality, sexuality and fear. They explore the environment and living off the land, wrestling with a culture of eating meat with modern environmental concerns.

It has tones of Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe in the sense that it explores some darker parts of life with beautiful prose, at times almost poetic. It made me think about our writers of the past Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson, who shared the difficulties of life on the land but with love and appreciation for the roughness and ruggedness of that life.

Growing Up in Country Australia is also an incredibly important book as in many ways we are a nation divided, with city and coastal dwellers increasingly unaware of the experiences of our fellow Australians who live relying on the elements as the debate about climate change rages. This book can create a deeper understanding by providing a voice and representation for those whom these issues impact more directly.

For those who grew up in the country, it also provides the ability to reminisce and gain an understanding of the experiences of those they grew up around, who were different due to their race, ethnicity, sexuality or financial circumstances and realise they may not have been as alone as they thought. Some escaped to the city only to return to the land while some found their true place in a new environment.

The term ‘must-read’ gets thrown around a lot in today’s literary and social media world but some books really deserve the accolade. Growing up in Country Australia is one of them.

—Growing Up in Country Australia, edited by Rick Morton (Black Inc. Books), is out now.

Growing Up in Country Australia

Limited Signed Copies Available!

by Rick Morton (Ed.)

Black Inc.'s bestselling Growing Up series goes to the country

Growing Up in Country Australia is a fresh, modern look at country Australia. There are stories of joy, adventure, nostalgia, connection to nature and freedom, but also grimmer tales - of drought, fires, mouse plagues and isolation. From the politics of the country school bus to the class divides between locals, from shooting foxes with Dad to giving up meat as an adult...

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About the Contributor

Karen Robinson