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OVERVIEW
Jamie Riley is not a bad boy, but his lack of family support, and a rather
unfortunate attitude mean that he’s had his fair share of trouble. When he is
sent to Port Barren as an alternative to going to jail, he is put in the care of a
social worker, Lorraine, and is boarded with the sage Archie. His troubles begin
almost immediately when Elliot Butcher, the local police sergeant, harasses
him. He soon finds out that the town has an evil atmosphere and an unfortunate
history. Two young people have mysteriously disappeared: one, a problem kid
from the city like Jamie; and the other, a young girl, a survivor of a massacre on
a refugee boat.
Jamie begins hearing voices, particularly when he explores the boat,
abandoned on the beach. As the messages become stronger, and as the
provocation from Butcher increases, Jamie begins to understand the real cause
of the town’s trouble. Because of this, he is kidnapped by Butcher and
abandoned at Flaherety’s Curse, the disused mine works far from town.
Just as it seems he is to follow the same fate as his predecessors, a school
friend Cameron rescues him. After discovering the bones of the dead refugee
girl, they begin the long walk back to town to prove Butcher’s guilt. On their
return, the story reaches its climax when Butcher traps Jamie in the boat that he
sets alight. Jamie is rescued just in time and he is able to lay the girl’s spirit to
rest and restore harmony to the town.
Character
‘James Riley, seventeen, father missing, mother deceased, one brother
currently serving a maximum security sentence for armed robbery and theft,’ is
an unwilling hero.
For most of his life the efforts of social workers and cops have been
entertainment for him. He’s managed to deal with them, as with most things by
a quiet, ‘I don’t give a damn’ attitude. However this is not enough to deal with
the malevolence he faces, nor with the voices which reach out to him
from the past, when he is sent to isolated care in Point Barren, the scene of
some of his last childhood memories with his mother.
Setting
This is no holiday resort. The gritty landscape, balanced between the sea and
the desert, is always a presence. Set on the northwestern tip of Australia, the
remote mining town has lost its equilibrium as a result of its violent past.
Plot
Jamie’s journey is an archetypal search for identity that should hold strong
appeal for boys. There’s tension and the supernatural here, as the plot is driven
Staff House Road
PO Box 6042
St Lucia QLD 4067
Australia
St Lucia QLD 4067
Australia
Ph: (+61 7) 3365 2606
Fax: (+61 7) 3365 7579
uqp[at]uqp.com.au
www.uqp.com.au
University of Queensland Press
ABN 63 942 912 684
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UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND PRESS
relentlessly forward. His initial attempts to stay out of trouble are a failure as he
responds more urgently to the mysterious calls from the abandoned boat and
the intense provocation of the crooked policeman. With the assistance of his
schoolmate Cameron, Jamie finds himself at the centre of a struggle to lay to
rest the town’s ghosts, and ultimately on an arduous journey to survive and to
reveal the truth.
Themes
The book offers a new perspective on the isolation of Australian life. It focuses
less on the Aboriginal Culture suggested in the ‘Dreaming’ of the title, than on a
more inclusive interpretation of belonging, drawing in the refugees from the
north into the cultural and narrative history of the area. Jamie himself finds a
new sense of place at the end of the novel, no longer a ‘wanderer’ or a ‘lost
one’, but a ‘local’. And it is in the final resting place of the dead girl that the
novel achieves its resolution and the creation of a new kind of dreaming.
Motifs
This novel is largely plot driven. A few brief distinguishing features delineate the
characters, and their relationships are defined primarily through conflict. There
are a number of interesting motifs running through the book that can usefully be
explored:
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The idea of balance
The grittiness of the setting
The boat as centre of disharmony
General sense of unease
Imprisonment
Each of these ideas is developed through patterns of imagery that make useful
Language Study activities.
Use in the Classroom
The book can be used in the classroom in a variety of ways, but it is a good
read. The writer has cleverly condensed events, so they appear to happen
consecutively with a strong hook at the end of each chapter to keep the pages
turning. Any approach that maximizes this quality is recommended.
Central to the novel is the journey, so Joseph Campbell’s Mythic Structure
provides an interesting framework for a discussion of the plot and the role its
characters play in it. (See Student Activities)