Praiseworthy (2024) by Alexis Wright

Australian-Indigenous author Alexis Wright

Book Review

Praiseworthy (2024)

by Alexis Wright

  I was excited to read a rave review for this new novel by Australian/Indigenous author Alexis Wright. It goes without saying that 90% of Australian literature that gets out of Australia is written from a white, Anglo-British perspective with the remaining 10 percent being immigrant type lit from European and non-European immigrants. Before reading Praiseworthy I don't think I'd ever read a book, seen a movie, listened to a song, where the artist was an indigenous Australian. 

  Praiseworthy is not what I would call a crowd pleaser.  It's over 600 pages long and written entirely in stream of consciousness format, with the narrators being muses, one per hundred page chapter, telling the story of a more-or-less nuclear indigenous family- patriarch Cause Man Steel, who is obssessed with harnessing the power of donkeys to replace fossil fuel based transport, his older son Aboriginal Sovereignty and younger son Tommyhawk.   The time is 2007, after the Australian Government passed the Intervention act, which banned indigenous Australians from possessing alcohol and pornography(!).   The language is flowing and entrancing- I've often found the saving grace of 500 page plus stream-of-consciousness style novels is that not much actually happens since every character takes 50 pages to take a dump or walk down to the mailbox.  Also almost all stream-of-consciousness writing follows the template of stating a thought or observation and then having the character go on elaborating and expanding on that exact thought until they come to their next thought.  

  These rules hold true in Praiseworthy, but I wouldn't call it a fun read.  Vital, yes.  Important, yes.  Prize winning, possibly, but not fun.