THICKER THAN WATER
Gippsland, Australia. 1843
A prominent local settler is found dead on the side of the road, stripped naked. After months of escalating tensions between the region’s native people and European settlers, this new outrage is enough to spark a blaze of retribution.
Armed, organised and angry, a group of white men stumble upon an aboriginal encampment nestled in a wide bend of a creek. They advance stealthily, fanning out in a line until they stretch between the banks like catgut on a bow.
It is a fine trap: when the first shots are fired there is nowhere for the Gunai to run.
“Stunning … A true story that reads like classy, compelling fiction”
—The Times
“Read it if you want to ask big questions about Britain, race and responsibility”
—Reni Eddo-Lodge
Cal Flyn’s acclaimed debut, Thicker Than Water, was published in the UK and in Australia in 2016.
In it, she retraces the journey made by a distant relative, Angus McMillan, as he fled the Highland Clearances for the Australian bush. McMillan was fêted as a pioneer hero in his lifetime, but has more recently been implicated as ringleader of a number of brutal massacres of the Gunai aboriginal people. As she delves into some of colonial history’s darkest secrets, she comes to examine the long term consequences for McMillan and his friends’ acts – and to ask: has today’s generation inherited a responsibility to atone for our ancestors’ sins?
The book was featured widely in the media – including by The Guardian, The Economist, BBC Radio 4 and The Australian – and was selected by The Times as one of the best books of the year.
“Intelligently and evocatively written”
The Scotsman
“A moving and impressive debut”
The Daily Telegraph