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Sweet One Kindle Edition
Peter Docker (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
- PublisherFremantle Press
- Publication date1 July 2014
- LanguageEnglish
- File size973 KB
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Product description
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B00L0LYDVK
- Publisher : Fremantle Press (1 July 2014)
- Language : English
- File size : 973 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 320 pages
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Top reviews from other countries


Using similar events as the subject matter of SWEET ONE does not, at any stage, feel exploitative. Rather what Docker seems to be doing in this book is explore the ongoing conflict between right and wrong, black and white, and the way that the tension cannot end when there is such a unfairly balanced power share in the relationship between Aboriginal and Authority Australia.
Set in the Western Australian goldfields, the landscape and weather is as harsh and unwelcoming as those Authority figures. Yet Izzy Langford is drawn to the story, and to the place, in the same way that her Vietnam veteran father was drawn before - although this comes as a surprise to her.
"The feeling of being in another country is suddenly overwhelming to Izzy. Not just because of how different the place looks, and how different the people sound - but knowing how different the reaction of her university-educated friends would be, thousands and thousands of kilometres to the east in inner-city Melbourne."
Through her eyes we see the differences, she provides a voice to articulate reactions - positive and negative in a way that's observational and not judgemental. Langford's a journalist, she has a background in reporting on Aboriginal deaths in custody, although her previous story was dropped when the accused police officer was acquitted (again Docker uses the real-life events of Palm Island as the basis for this plot element).
Building on that idea of connections, Langford is connected to Aboriginal Deaths in Custody investigations, as she is to the place, as she is to returned servicemen from Afghanistan - having been embedded there and in Pakistan in the past. The tendrils of these threads weave together cleverly to give the reader a feeling that connectedness is a complicated, multi-level thing, much like our white understanding of Aboriginal connection to place, and past, might feel.
"Below them there is a man waiting. A soldier. A warrior. He lies there feeling the country. He can taste his country at the corners of his mouth. He can smell his country through the dust in his nose. And his country can smell him. The smell and the taste fill him with a power - a power so subtle that even those who are trained to look would have trouble seeing."
A white man, born in Wiilman Country, who grew up in Wudjari Country, and now lives in the Kimberley, Docker writes about the colliding edges of black and white Australia. He does not shy away from the reckless and vicious elements of outback life - the financial manipulation, enforced sex trade, and the drinking and abuse - black and white. He also draws a strong picture of the strength of family, and the success of many people who sit astride the edge. In particular the strength of many of the women in communities - which feels so real, so right. He also uses the idea of retribution as a core plot element, the evening of scores. This, combined with truths that sneak up and ambush the reader on the way through, delivered in a classic thriller format mean that it's hard not to feel like there are lessons here, delivered in the most real, practical and down to earth manner possible.
All of which is supported by strong characters, a sense of humour so dry you can feel the heat as it whips past you, and some absolutely beautiful and lyrical passages describing the place, feelings, connections, past, present and future.
Whilst there is much to be said for the strength of people writing their own stories and telling things from their own perspective, SWEET ONE reminds that an observer's eye can also be acute. When that eye is combined with sympathy, respect and love, then the stories told are strong, and in a language that's accessible, gripping, moving, emotional, provocative and forceful.
* Name not used in accordance with Aboriginal custom
[...]

It was exhausting to read, made worse by the absence of inverted commas to distinguish the dialogue.
I had no sense of time or place with the story and I did not care a jot about the protagonist or any of the characters.

Having some exposure to outback Australia I was taken by Docker's description of the landscape and emphasis on the strength and importance of family to Aboriginal people. I recommend this read to anyone.
About the author

Docker was born in 1964 in Narrogin, a remote wheatbelt town in Western Australia, the son of a motor mechanic and a medical secretary. His life journey would teach him that under the waving golden wheat is Wiilman Boodja, the traditional lands of the Nyoongar People, and that the Wiilman People are still here. At aged 2, he moved to even more remote Lort River Station, Coomalbidgup, in Wudjari Boodja, and grew up with his 3 brothers on a million acres owned by the Chase Manhattan Bank. After dropping out of engineering studies, and a failed attempt to join the banking industry, he studied writing at Curtin University (Whadjuk Boodja). He wrote his first play, concerning the issues of injustice surrounding the suicide of a close friend whilst in his teens. This desire to confront injustices would be a constant fire. Docker then studied acting at the VCA, Melbourne University (Lands of the Kulin Nations). He has worked extensively on stage, screen, and television, and writing many performance projects and radio plays along the way. In the early 90s, Docker's life took a swerve, and a series of events led him to become intimately involved with indigenous peoples, and their causes. These are human causes. SOMEONE ELSE'S COUNTRY is his first book (2005), where Docker shines a light on the madness, pain, and joy in his own life experiences. THE WATERBOYS (2011), a dystopian climate change thriller was shortlisted for Best Science Fiction Novel at the 2012 Aurealis awards in Sydney (Dhurug/Eora).
His forthcoming work is set in and around the secret war being waged by Australian states against Aboriginal peoples.