Storyland by Christine McKinnon is a tale of Australia and the people who inhabited it – and those yet to inhabit it.
Concentrating on the Illawarra area of NSW, we travel through time from 1706 to 1812 to 1900 to 2033 and finally 2717, telling the stories of the land through the people who lived there.
This story begins 1706 in Sydney Cove. The Governor is in desperate need of fresh water for the colony to survive. He calls on the experience of George Bass and Lieutenant Mathew Flinders to set on an expedition to locate the mouth of the river that Henry Hacking discovered inland.
Hacking had guessed that the mouth would be south of Botany Bay near Cape Banks. They set off aboard Tom Thumb with William Martin, a young man who has just arrived in Australia and is amazed and intrigued by what he sees. Will is eager to prove himself and he discovers the valley of our story, as climbs the huge fig tree to survey the land.
When a storm blows them off course and their water is discovered foul, they are left with no alternative but to make for land where they encounter natives who try and take them to a lagoon. With stories of cannibalism rife in the colony they are unsure as to their trustworthiness, wondering whether they will survive to find water for the colony…
In 1822 Hawker lives on the banks of the lagoon, he is a convict who made one poor decision and was sent to this ‘brutal’ land, losing everything he knows. Now a worker on a corn plantation, he often has to deal with the natives who camp on the shores of the lagoon, stealing his master’s corn. A lovely native girl that has caught his eye, and he attempts to bargain for her. He dreams of obtaining his freedom, but when the owner’s sons come to oversee his work and the natives decide to steal the corn, Hawker is forced to make a decision which will have him questioning why he is here and whether there will ever be a future for him…
In 1900 Lola, her sister Mary and brother Abe are struggling after the death of their mother, step mother and finally their father, to keep their family dairy farm in the valley running. They have little support from their community, most believe they are not capable. Abe falls in love with Jewel a settlers’ daughter.
Jewel is all her father has and he is very protective and does not believe Abe is worthy of her. When Jewel goes missing, Abe is the obvious suspect, has she run away, or has something more sinister happened. Aunty enlists the help of the local native tracker before Jewel’s father finds Abe and inflicts his own justice regardless of the facts. The tracker leads them to the lagoon and secret caves where Jewel and Abe would meet in secret…
1998 and Bel is fascinated with Dragonflies. She lives in the valley with her mother and father and meets brothers Isha, Tarak and their dog/wolf Zeus one day during school holidays, when they arrive on the bank of the lagoon near her house in a homemade raft. “Wanna be friends” they call out, and she climbs on board for an adventurous summer.
After scaring the girls who bring their horses down to the lagoon for a drink, they venture over to ‘Swamp Park’ where they climb the large Figtree and find Kristie and her suitcase. Kristie lives in a shack in the next bay with Ned who gets Kristie to help him sell paintings he gets from central Australia. They sell them to rich people up in Sydney and Kristy tells them she is Ned’s token Aborigine. The children visit daily and help Ned and Kristie renovate their shack, but there is something sinister going on just below the surface, and Lola is unsure whether to tell her mum and dad of her new friends…
Nada’s story takes place in 2033 and 2717. She is confused about where she is. She is talking to a therapist about her friends and family and her memories of their lives in the valley. Nada lived in the house near the big Figtree and had an idyllic life until the day the world changed. Cut off from everything by water, when Ben becomes sick and she has to walk for help, not knowing what she will encounter, or whether the bridges have survived the storm. She discovers a world in chaos, people literally fighting for food and medicine. Nada learns that she has to make a decision to survive at the expense of others, did they all make it? Where is she now? What has become of the world and the fig tree?
“The land is a book; waiting to be read”… Storyland by Christine McKinnon is an intriguing novel about the story told by a land, our land, and the people and lives it has encountered.