After Story by Larissa Behrendt

I was recently asked by the good folk at Wheeler Centre to talk about Larissa Behrendt’s book After Story as part of their book club for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award Fiction Prize. I couldn’t make it because of reasons, but I was able to write the following which was read out by the wonderful Angela Meyer. These are my thoughts.

DJ

I’ve always thought that the key to bridging the disconnect of understanding between the plight of Aboriginal people, and those who don’t understand why so many of my people are in such a perilous plight, is the lack of comprehension of intergenerational trauma. 

To this fact, After Story by Larissa Behrendt is an important chapter in the Australian storybook which is now seeped with the voices of so many First Nations writers and story tellers, Larissa is right out on the forefront of those voices. 

There are many aspects of After Story that I could highlight. But for me, the two main elements which still resonate strongly with me, even after several months after having read it, are first of all the realness of the characters and secondly the nuanced exploration of racism and trauma. 

After Story is told from the point of view of the two main characters Della and her daughter Jasmine. Della’s voice is true, straight to the point and without what some called ‘sophistication’. As a Yorta Yorta man, Della’s voice is one that I feel I have heard my whole life – unpretentious but devastatingly poignant when you least expect. 

Likewise, but differently, Jasmine’s voice also resonates strongly with me, because it is closer to my own. I am fortunate enough to be part of a generation of First Nations people that have not only been afforded an education in the western sense, but am old enough to have learnt from the old people. Generations that spent their lives on the mission, those who have a memory of their old people and stories which they were told from times long past. 

I feel like I know these characters. Not kind of know them, but actually know them.

 The twin narrative approach is a tricky one to pull off and it takes someone of Larissa’s experience and skill to do it successfully.

It is in the prologue that we learn of the devastating kidnapping and death of Jasmine’s older sister Brittany. Della the mother, as often seems to be the case in horrific circumstances such as this, was blamed for the seven-year old’s death. It is these events including the death of Jasmine’s father at around the same and the passing of Aunty Elaine, the family matriarch, that permeate through so much of After Story. 

The book cleverly uses the juxtaposition of European knowledge, which has what has traditionally been taught in Australian schools and Indigenous knowledge and knowledge systems which have not. But at no time throughout the book does Larissa deride or thumb her nose at western knowledge. There is a genuine love for the work of Shakespeare, Austin and Dickens within the pages of After Story. It is through Della and Jasmine’s ten-day trip to the heart of western culture that two come to grips with their own story and what has been lost and what there is to still hold onto through the memory of the ever present Aunty Elaine. 

It is the intertwining of the narrative within the western context that highlights how complex it can be to be a First Nations person. Two knowledge systems, two generations, two lived experiences but one trauma. A trauma that flows effortlessly through generations in a myriad of guises.  

After Story is an important book at a time where truth telling has never been more important. We live in a time where the truth and all the uneasiness that can come with it, is drowned out in the echo chamber of self-righteous rage which perversely brings a form of comfort with the hoarsest of voices. 

The challenge for the reader and for us as a nation is to open ourselves to First Nations stories, they are written to tell the truth and to add value to the community in which we live. After Story is full of truth, trauma and humour. In that way it mirrors life while revealing more about what we know and don’t know.

Isn’t that what great storytelling does?