As we got ready for our recent Melbourne trip, I was thinking about the then upcoming announcement of the Stella Prize shortlist, so I packed the two longlisted books I already had. But then, en route, we listened to the Secrets of the Green Room interview with Tasma Walton about her longlisted novel, I am Nannertgarrook. I was intrigued, so I bought it, and, lo and behold, it was shortlisted. My next read was decided.

I am Nannertgarrook, which co-won last year’s ARA Historical Novel Prize, joins the increasing number of historical fiction novels written by First Nations authors, like Kim Scott’s That dead man dance (my review) and Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie (my review). These novels make critical contributions to the truthtelling process. For far too long, Australians have been fed historical novels telling Australian history from the white settler perspective. It’s well past time that we heard other perspectives, particularly those of First Nations peoples.

So, I am Nannertgarrook is an early settlement story. It starts in 1833 in Nerrm (Port Phillip Bay), in Boonwurrung Nation, and moves slowly west to Bald Island, in Noongar Nation in south-western Western Australia, ending around 30 years later. It is based on the story, documented in colonial records, of Tasma Walton’s ancestor, Nannertgarrook (or Eliza ‘No-one’ Nowen/Gamble) who was snatched from her home and sold on the slave market to a sealer.

“in a horror story made real”

The novel opens, idyllically, with some of the traditional features of historical romance fiction, including Nannertgarrook’s romantic descriptions of her “strong” perfect husband: “His kiss stirs a yearning in my belly”, “He is mine … and I am his”. I recollected that publisher Anita Heiss’s goals for the Bundyi imprint is to publish “Commercial fiction: romance / chick lit, historical fiction, contemporary fiction” (see my post), and started to think this was going to be a bit too formulaic for me. But, it soon took a turn, and I realised that, although it had a compelling story-line, I am Nannertgarrook was not going to be a plot-driven book. Instead, it is a considered novel about grief, abuse, and rapaciousness, about true savagery, and about community and resilience in the face of a world ending.

I am Nannertgarrook is told first person through Nannertgarrook’s eyes. It follows her life as “her” sealer keeps moving them west, further and further away from all she knows. We feel her despair when, each time they board his boat, he turns towards the setting sun, and she knows she is not going home. The novel is driven, in fact, by a rich meaning of “home”, because here is the story of a young mother plucked, not only from her family and people but from partway along her journey to full knowledge of her culture. An ongoing grief through the novel is what she doesn’t know and now may never learn:

How different is my world now … the certainty of millennia-long knowledge and experience lost to me on the other side of the horizon. And for the first time a maternal fear creeps up my spine and wraps an icy hand around my heart. Will my baby be safe? Can I do this alone, without my Elders, my aunties, my countrywomen by my side?

This visceral grief – for her beloved Sea Country, and for the knowledge she will never have – combined with her attempts to understand, and then live lightly and fairly on unfamiliar Countries thread through the novel. Walton conveys, by showing, what living on Country is and means (just as Dank did in her nonfiction work, We come with this place). She does not play down to her readers. Indeed, she uses around 150 words from Nannertgarrook’s Boonwurrung language in her telling. There is a glossary at the back, to which I referred occasionally, but in most cases the words were understandable in context or quickly became familiar. These words, like bubup (child/baby), liwurruk (sister), and murrup (spirit/soul) breathe life into the telling. They are not italicised or differentiated in any way. It is up to the reader to go with the flow, and it works, because it gives the story its own flow and authenticity.

Nannertgarrook’s despair over her loss of home and family is pervasive, but I can’t ignore the elephant in the room, the physical horrors to which she and her companions were subjected. Walton handles this – the abuse, the rape, the brutalisation of women and children from very young ages – with skill. She does not build up suspense, nor does she describe it in great detail. These would sensationalise, and effectively downplay, the ongoing nature of the brutality. There is enough distressing description for us to know it, and to remember that it – and the fear of it – is constant. Like Nannertgarrook, we breathe a sigh of relief when the sealers leave the women on land while they go off on their killing sprees.

Related to the physical abuse is the issue of naming. Walton said in the interview that she did not grace the sealers with names, because they did not deserve such recognition. These men, of course, did name “their” women, so Nannertgarrook became Eliza, or, when her sealer felt like belittling her further, “No-one”. Walton, naturally, uses Boonwurrung names for her characters. These aren’t easy for our settler ears, but tough, eh? We won’t learn if we don’t hear.

“insatiable white ghosts”

Two main themes underpin this novel. One is Nannertgarrook’s abduction. A personal story, it also exemplifies the destruction of communities, country and, thus, culture by the early settlers, and it foreshadows the legacy of trauma. The other theme is the rapacious behaviour of the sealers, whalers and others, who killed everything in their path, paying no heed to preserving species into the future. This behaviour typifies the rapaciousness of settler culture in general. The destruction of trees, the indiscriminate killing of kangaroos and joeys, are documented in the novel. Nannertgarrook sees it all, and feels the “shocked hush of irreparable decimation” in the land.

Ultimately, I am Nannertgarrook interrogates one word, warragul, the Boonwurrung word for savage. The novel is divided into three main parts, with the central part titled “Warragul”. It becomes quickly clear just who the savage is, and it’s not the people who “come with this place”. Nannertgarrook knows it, and we know it, but it’s a point worth making in a world where language, sometimes all too subtly, infiltrates the way we understand each other.

So, after some early reservations, I found I am Nannertgarrook an impressive read – moving and informative.

Near the end of the novel, Nannertgarrook hears herself identified as Eliza:

Fierce, righteous anger propels the words from my mouth. Not Eliza. Not No-one. My words are clear and strong. I am Nannertgarrook.

Walton’s novel returns her ancestor Nannertgarrook to her rightful place as a human being deserving of respect. It also constitutes a powerful assertion of identity, much like, dare I say it, Helen Reddy’s “I am woman, hear me roar”. Nannertgarrook, quietly but strongly, roars in this novel.

Tasma Walton
I am Nannertgarrook
Sydney: Bundyi, 2025
263pp.
ISBN: 9781761426698