from the editor's desk
Review of ‘Madukka The River Serpent’ by Julie Janson
Janson, Julie. Madukka The River Serpent. Perth: University of Western Australia Publishing, 2022. RRP: $34.99, 301pp, ISBN: 9781760802318.
Brenda Saunders
Julie Janson is a poet and playwright from the Dharug Nation, Sydney. Her previous novel Benevolence (Magabala Books, 2020) was written, she says, as a response to The Secret River by Kate Grenville (2005). This is her first Indigenous crime novel.
This story is set in real time, in a town on the Darling River, on Barkadji Country, far-west New South Wales. It concerns the Black protagonist, June, and her family’s struggle for justice against a police system that is historically weighted against them.
The novel begins with the sacred Barka River in drought. Bushfire smoke lingers over the imaginary town of Wilga. There is talk of stolen water upriver. Is the local politician in league with the northern cotton farmers? The river is turning green with dead fish. A metaphor perhaps for the slowly shrinking white town, suffering from the effects of a long drought.
We first meet Aunty June outside her office on the main street. She has her Certificate III in Investigative Services from TAFE framed and proudly displayed on the wall of her office. A handwritten sign in the window announces ‘Yanakirri Investigation Services—Confidentiality Guaranteed’ (2). She shows no respect or fear of police. When the local ‘gunji’, Police Sergeant Blackett, comes to mock her success, she ‘oozed annoyance’ while he ‘looked over her broad golden face, pink lips, tall frame and skinny legs’ (2).
June shares her house with old Uncle Jack, her brother William, his wife Merle and their headstrong daughter Arana. When June’s nephew Thommo, a young activist, goes missing, she is determined to find answers and to uncover the truth. So begins this intriguing tale of murder, corruption, false trails and the uneasy presence of the local ‘Gobblers’ bikie gang, known for selling drugs. The dramatic incidents that unfold alongside a police cover-up keep the thriller moving along at a steady pace. Fear and threats hang over June daily, yet our hero is determined to find answers:
Inside June’s heart and head was a pulsing, deep-thinking Black woman, a person who valued self-deprecation and a lack of meanness […] She never wanted to […] be a big-noter or loudmouth […] she could never sit still and watch people abused (161)
The river holds powerful stories for the Barkadji, the ‘River People’. It remains a yellow trickle until September, when the spring floods come. The water begins as a cleansing relief for all, but soon becomes a deluge, threatening the town’s survival. It also brings some retribution for June and her family.
The spirit world is always in their lives. June’s nights are haunted by visitations from the dead and other strange animal spirits. The river serpent appears as an angry force seeking revenge during the flood. The imagery is graphic and lyrical, no doubt due to Janson’s expertise as a poet.
The spectacular descriptions of landscape set the emotional tone in this novel. Janson’s language is at times edgy and raw, her characters real and believable. Throughout this thriller, she offers light relief in the exchanges between the Aboriginal people. Janson is well-tuned to the humorous and often racy Barka lingo of the local community, as acknowledged in her dedication.
June has the support of her Aboriginal family. On the night of the second disappearance, they all go to the police station, then return home and sit drinking tea all night on the big ‘night and day lounge from Harvey Norman’ (53).
Her flawed characters however are often shown as ridiculous, yet devastatingly human. For example, Blackett, the police sergeant, ‘was in his sixties, with a paunch and thinning grey hair over skin cancers. His black R. M. Williams riding boots were non-uniform issue: convenient for kicking someone’ (2).
Each chapter in the novel is dated, beginning on Australia Day, 26th January. This records the time and place of the unfolding action, until the final resolution in September. For June, the truth, the mystery, is still unresolved although the new police have closed their investigation into the unexplained deaths of two young Aboriginal men.
The Black Community demand an explanation, causing a night of rioting and arrests.
June wouldn’t be mute, wouldn’t accept that the young men might be flung like garbage into a paddy wagon […] She wanted to speak out, not let others do the talking. (245)
June is methodical and thorough. She even uses a listening device. Her investigative reports and photos are recorded on her phone or on Post-It notes. So, she calls a public meeting to disclose her evidence, which finally leads to arrests. The death in custody case, however, remains unresolved, an outcome we have seen reported in headlines far too often in recent years.
In December, June packs up her office. She heads for Redfern, the place where all Aborigines meet up, the place where the fight for Aboriginal Rights first began. Is this the last of the ‘deadly’ detective or has she more crimes to solve?
Brenda Saunders is a Wiradjuri writer from Sydney. She has published three poetry collections, the most recent Inland Sea (Ginninderra Press, 2021). Her poetry has been published widely in anthologies and journals, including Mascara, Australian Poetry, Best Australian Prose Poems (2021) and Best Australian Poems (2022).
