This is a sad, yet wonderful mystical generational story of an Aboriginal family living on the outskirts of a town in a community referred to as “the Campground”.

Through a series of experiences of the family we are witness to culture, community, dispossession, poverty, violence and racism.

The writing for me though was very lyrical and I’m not sure I enjoyed that. I did enjoy that the author wasn’t “afraid” to talk about complex issues facing the community and the magical element to the story. I particularly enjoyed the story/concept of the Crocodile spirit.

Song of the Crocodile was not the book I envisioned. An unusual read that was stop start.
Review copy received from the Publisher via Netgalley for an honest opinion.

This is an incredible, epic, family saga, which reinvents the narrative structure of the genre through the lens of First Nations people. The white family saga may follow generations, usually with the repetition of patterns, mothers and daughters, etc. -- which this does. But white family sagas are mostly written in a linear, chronological arc. Of course, there are resonances between generations, flashbacks, narrative connections made that transcend boundaries of time, particularly in dual-timeline type novels. However, Song of the Crocodile is the first novel I have read that tells a family saga in the way that I have often heard that time is experienced by First Nations Peoples in the Dreaming -- the past is always present. When ancestors die in this novel, that is not the end of their arc. They continue to interact with their descendants from the other side in the sky. Spirits of the land continue to interact with the landforms, in continual cycles, despite the physical destruction of the landscape by white colonisers.

5★
“Strangely scratched gums were bulldozed for further access and the garbage mounds quickly grew, the bora and its circles consumed by trash, rubbish, the towns scraps. The pathway was given the name of Old Black Road.”

This is a strange and sad and wonderful book. It would be hard-hearted readers who didn’t find themselves immersed in Simpson’s small/big story of an Aboriginal family who lives at the Campgrounds on the outskirts of a small country town.

The activities are the everyday cooking, washing, sweeping, endless cups of tea and conversation between the women and girls or between the men and boys. There are several generations, but the main focus is Celie Billymil and her daughter Mili.

Celie worked in the hospital laundry, cleaning the bed linens by boiling them in the copper over a fire, scrubbing them and hanging them out to dry. They were often putrid, but we are told they were spotless when she was done with them. Her hands were a wreck. But she loved that she had a job and Tom.

“Celie and Tom Billymil lay staring at the ribbed roof of their bedroom, listening. The flat tin roof played a soft symphony of pings and clicks as the metal stretched to greet the new day.”

Interspersed with their activities are conversations from ‘above’. From past elders and those who are watching their families below. Some we get to know as characters. The stars and celestial bodies are important in many cultures, not least in Aboriginal lore. It’s the kind of thing artists have incorporated into what many of us think of as Aboriginal dot painting.

“Many stars in the sky were in fact hearths, each of these hearths comprising a family, waiting for their loved ones to arrive. The large men and women sat crosslegged next to each other, each with a strand of twined rope tied loosely around their left big toe. The binding trailed away into the blackness, the end taken up on the edge of the atmosphere and woven into the nests of birds. The trees would transfer the string through their heartbeat, below the ground and to their roots. It created an earthly network that connected all living or once lived things across the expanse.”

The river, the trees, the bora ground, the special places have all been part of their families and culture forever. In other cultures, they might be the churches, temples, schools, ceremonial community centres. This is certainly at odds with how the mayor and his cronies see them, as ripe for development.

From the town’s white families, we have the expected racism, paternalism, and abuse inflicted on the families who live in the Campgrounds. Mili’s twin cousins, Alby and Ernie, are constant targets of the white boys, who gang up on them.

“‘And when Alby pinches me, it stings all day.’

‘Yes, my sweet, it hurts all day. But you never cry, and you never make trouble for them, do you?’

‘No, Mum.’

‘And why is that do you think?’ Mili paused, but only for an instant.

‘Well, the way my arm feels when Alby pinches me is the way he might feel all the time. Ernie too.’”

There is a dark undercurrent, the crocodile, Garriya, a threatening spirit creature that lurks in wait. It is being watched by those ‘above’. The story is frequently interrupted by small insertions of the power that is in danger of being released. When something bad happens:

“The tail of the crocodile freed itself from its limestone casing and swung, the great muscle thrashing and crushing the stone around into dust.”

A little later:

“Garriya stretched and extended its claws, pushing them hard into the loose earth. Its body was free. It was ready to come home.”

There is so much language that the flow of conversations and descriptive passages take on a kind of lilt. I may not be able to translate the words, but the feeling is clear. Simpson has made lyrical use of her Yuwaalaraay heritage, and if I didn’t already know she was a musician, I might have guessed it.

She has taken the universe and distilled it into a small, riverside town with people we care about and the people whom they have always cared about and revered. Just beautiful.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Australia for the preview copy from which I've quoted.

Nardi Simpson's debut novel is elegiac, evocative and mystical, its narrative skilfully interwoven with its Yuwaalaraay country setting, exploring layers of significance in the river plain landscape.
Song of the Crocodile is a multi-generational epic following the experiences of the extended Billymil family, as their ancestor spirits watch over them, their surrounding landscape internalising their memories, both happy and sorrowful. The first half of the book focuses on Margaret Lightning, her daughters Bess Bradley and Celie Billymil, Celie's ill-fated husband Tom and their daughter, Mili. They live to the east of the town of Darnmoor, in north-western NSW, beyond the town tip, in an underdeveloped area called "the Campground", a sort of shanty town on the banks of the Mangamanga river, in close proximity to all the other indigenous families.
After Margaret is unfairly accused of stealing and sacked from her job as laundress for the regional hospital, the enterprising Celie sets to work to support the family, first working as washerwoman for the Mayor's family, and later setting up a laundry enterprise staffed by indigenous women, known as "The Blue Shed". The ignorance and prejudice of virtually all of the European-Australian characters is pervasive, as the indigenous population suffer from generational disposession and poverty.
In the latter part of the novel, we follow Mili, her husband Wil Wilandra and her sons Patrick (Paddy) and Yarramala (Yarrie), as Wil works hard to carry on Tom Billymil's legacy in improving conditions for the indigenous members of the Darnmoor community. But an awful secret from Mili's past will come back to haunt them all, as Garriya - the coniving, evil and lonely crocodile spirit has been awoken and identified Paddy as his mandii (earthly host).
I first set out to read the book quickly, to meet the publication deadline, but soon decided that I wasn’t doing it justice. This is a book that warrants slower absorption and reflection. I still feel like a lot went way over my head, and intend to return to read it a second time before too long.
This was a moving and evocative novel, with lyrical prose and well-developed indigenous characters. The frequent use of Yuwaalaraay language and the extensive incorporation of local folklore added complexity to the narrative, adding mystery, magic and fatalism to the story. I'm expecting to see it feature in many awards lists over coming months.
Trigger warnings: child sexual abuse, frequent depictions of racism, violence
My thanks to the author, Nardi Simpson, publisher Hachette Australia and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read this wonderful book prior to its publication on 29 September 2020.

I’ve attempted to write a review for this book on so many occasions but I can’t quite put into words how much I loved Song of the Crocodile. Nothing I write seems to do it justice. The storytelling is just phenomenal. It’s definitely a case of “you NEED to read this book” and I’m throwing my recommendation to read it at just about everybody I know.

Darnmoor – The Gateway to Happiness – where at the nearby Campground beside the Mangamanga River lived the Billymil family. Three generations of that family, part of the Yuwaalaraay people – Margaret, Celie and Mili – living through the racism, violence and prejudices from Darnmoor’s white population. Margaret had worked for a long time at the local hospital, washing the linens and working hard. When she was unexpectedly put off, it was at the same time as Celie’s husband died and she birthed Mili. Worry, stress and grief surrounded the family while progress moved forward creating change; but some things remained the same…

Song of the Crocodile is the debut novel by Aussie author Nardi Simpson, and it is lyrical, poignant and mystical, while filled with the horrors of racism and prejudice which the Aboriginal people continue to suffer from. The chapters where the ancestral spirits, along with the spirits of the recently deceased – where the song of the crocodile was sung, gently and with love – were profound. With an eye-catching cover and an important message to its readers, Song of the Crocodile is to be recommended.

With thanks to Hachette AU for my ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

This book! I cannot even begin to imagine how someone can write something so amazing. The language - I don't think I have ever read anything quite like it.

Song of the Crocodile is Nardi Simpson's debut novel and oh my god - what a debut! It is a saga across generations, filled with heartbreak and tragedy and woven through with connection and traditional lore, So many times I would reread a passage and just sit in awe at the way she describes different things, even evil things, so beautifully. It made me cry, hurt my heart, and made me so angry. These characters, this family - so much sadness, but also just so well written that you get swept up with them and you want to ride it out with them.

The true history of this country is so fucked up, and this is a book that needs to be read by all. Nardi Simpson, you are a genius and I cannot wait to see what you do next!

Nardi Simpson’s scorching novel Song of the Crocodile opens with the irony of a sign on the way into the small Australian country town of Darnmoor, the Gateway to Happiness. The fly-through that follows will be familiar to anyone who has driven around regional Australia. Two main streets with a war memorial at its crossroads, a bunch of shops and pub, the court and police station. And then out of town, past the rubbish tip and on the banks of the river is the “Campgrounds” – the Aboriginal community, the first people, exiled to the fringes of the town. Song of the Crocodile starts somewhere in the 1960s and charts four generations of the Billymil family and their struggle against the monolithic culture that is trying to crush them.
When the book opens, matriarch Margaret has been fired from her sheet washing job at the local hospital, accused of a crime that she did not commit. Not long after that her pregnant daughter Celie gives birth on the night her son-in-law is killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bulk of the story then focusses on Celie who has to make a life for herself and her daughter Mili who finds herself not only the subject of long held prejudices that hold her back but of casual sexual violence and later Patrick, her son from that encounter. But Simpson also runs a parallel narrative which takes readers to the world of the spirits, the place that the dead go to watch over those left behind. But there is danger here to, and it comes in the form of the rapacious Crocodile spirit that is stirring under the river bed.
Simpson’s sweeping novel captures the trials and struggle of Aboriginal communities in Australia in the second half of the Twentieth Century. Marginalised and discriminated against, then used as a workforce to destroy their own heritage and relocated when the town seeks to build its levee. The characters each represent a different relationship with the town community and with the authorities. And while they are to some degree emblematic, Simpson infuses them with complex and individual personalities so that they never come across as archetypes or stereotypes. That said, the scope of this novel means that Simpson often skips quickly across the years at a fairly dizzying pace, leaving much of the detail behind to move to events that move the plot forward.
Song of the Crocodile is itself full of song and the evocative Yuwaalaraay language of North West New South Wales. It presents a unsentimental but evocative view of the experience of Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal people, of the ongoing prejudice and the impacts of abuse and inter-generational trauma. But rooted in the experiences of its protagonists, it also highlights the joy, the support and sense of community. Simpson grabs the reader’s attention from the her poetic but disturbing opening and delivers a narrative that rewards that attention.

Well written and it certainly captured the atmosphere of how the indigenous people in towns have been treated so poorly.

Darnmoor is supposed to be ‘The Gateway to Happiness’ but that is far from the case.

The story follows three generations of Billymil family living at the Campgrounds, which is on the outskirts of town. It is a story of prejudice of all sorts - racial, sexual - but it is also about the trauma that is suffered.

This is a very moving story; the characters are well developed and you are taken into their lives.
It did leave me feeling very sad and depressed.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher Hachette Australia for a ebook copy to read and review.

Song of the Crocodile is a vibrant, and poignant story of three generations of the Billymil family who live on the fringes of a tiny outback town, Darnmoor, ‘The Gateway to Happiness’.

For Margaret, her daughter Celie, and Celie’s daughter, Mili, the Campgrounds along the banks of the Mangamanga River amongst their people, the Yuwaalaraay, is home, separated from the town proper by a rubbish tip, and the untenable contempt and suspicion of the white townspeople who have laid claim to their land.

Watched over by their ancestors, who are waiting and preparing for the time they will be needed to sing the ‘Song of the Crocodile’, life unfolds for the three women, the ordinary business of living touched by joy, tragedy, desire, pain, success and violence. Their stories are profound, their experiences both commonplace and, to me, unfamiliar. I felt for each of them, admiring their strengths, commiserating with their losses, appalled by their mistreatment.

Progress is a double-edged sword, wearing on the connections to family and land. Tension builds slowly, rifts widen, a reckoning approaches with a storm.

Rich, lyrical, and affecting, Song of the Crocodile is an accomplished debut from Nardi Simpson that tells a story of a people, their culture and country.

“This song was given to me by my master and is the last I will sing. It is the Song of the Crocodile, the greatest, most powerful song in this country.”

This was an epic multigenerational narrative told in dual perspectives, following three generations of the Billymil family living in Darnmoor, specifically the Campgrounds on the periphery of the main town.

The reader is introduced to Darnmoor the town as it’s own character within this story, with an opening to the story that sweeps over the buildings and land to give a familiar and simultaneously colonial-gothic feel to the setting. This continues in the people we follow in the story—there is a deep-seated racial divide in the town, mirrored in the literal division between the town itself and the Campgrounds. The narrative (without spoilers of anything specific) broadly explores the literal ramifications of colonial violence and the continued abuses that continue to be inflicted in this community, both on the people and on the land itself. The way that the various characters that we follow (namely Celie, Mili and Patrick) each respond and are impacted by the various traumas in their narratives allows for a really fulsome and complexly layered exploration of this within the narrative. I found myself reaching for a little more detail in relation to Celie’s thread, but thought the way that the narrative swept all of these together for the final scenes absolutely breathtaking.

This was a heartbreaking read that caught my breath with each hand the family were dealt, particularly as the narrative built towards its final scenes. I’d recommend it to readers who have enjoyed other multigenerational epics like HOMEGOING by Yaa Gyasi.

4.5🌟

A racist, bigoted, sexist country town that pays homage to its original settlers while ignoring the original inhabitants who are shunted to live in a fringe community. These Aborigines are not welcomed in town.
The story traces three generations. The first two are mother and daughter which were riveting. The later is the daughter's two sons which kind of dawdled for a while before hitting its straps. Intertwined through the novel is a mystical story of dreams, ancestors and beliefs which gave a poetic balance to the book.
I've read a few books about the terrible way Aborigines were treated. This one was written subtlety, honestly with the characters so real. I hope it is widely read.

‘The sign at the entrance of town is neither informative nor welcoming.’

There’s a sign at the edge of town: ‘Darnmoor, The Gateway to Happiness’. But what does this really mean?

This is a town neatly laid out, a town where proximity to the town centre matters. A town where, if you follow a bush track most know as the road to the tip, through a pathway known as ‘Old Black Road’ you’ll find The Campgrounds. Margaret Lightning is one of the inhabitants of The Campgrounds. She rises early in the morning to walk to her workplace: ‘two large coppers, an incinerator, and a washing line that spanned the width of the block behind the Darnmoor District Hospital.’

Margaret’s daughter and son-in-law, Celie and Tom Billymil live with her. Celie is pregnant, Tom is hoping for a better life for his family.

Scratch the surface of Darnmoor, and you will find tension between the Indigenous and settler families. Different rules, different expectations. Manipulation and exploitation, often less obvious than violence but just as harmful. And patterns are repeated.

Ms Simpson follows several stories, including those of Margaret, Celie, and Celie’s daughter Mili. This is a story of hardship, heartbreak, and hope. But there are secrets as well, imbalances of power which lead to anger and resentment. There is always an opportunist waiting to take advantage. And who speaks for the country?

‘As their feet dangled over the old waterway, lineage and custom flowed into the child.’

In this beautifully written story, with descriptions of land and the importance of connection, Ms Simpson explores what happens when connectedness is disrupted. This is achieved in part through ancestral spirits who try to guide members of the family. Stories are important, as is choice.

‘This song was given to me by my master and it is the last I will sing. It is the Song of the Crocodile, the greatest, most powerful song in this country.’

I finished this novel profoundly moved by Ms Simpson’s storytelling. ‘Song of the Crocodile’ is an exceptional novel.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Australia for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith