Book review of David Marr's extraordinary piece of Australian historical writing: Killing for Country: a Family Story (original) (raw)

Book review of David Marr's extraordinary piece of Australian historical writing: Killing for Country: a Family Story

David Marr explains everything about Killing for Country in a note that occupies no more than one page and immediately follows the Contents page. He says: "I remember my great-grandmother. She had a crumpled face and faded away when I was too young to notice. She was a blank. Stories weren't told about her. In 2019, an ancient uncle of mine asked me to find what I could about Maud. He knew so little. I dug out some books. It wasn't long before I was looking at a photograph of her father in the uniform of the Native Police. Killing for Country is a family story but it is also an important treatment of Australian history, documenting the way in which Indigenous people were systematically killed for thie land.