One of the highlights of The Yield is the way Winch conjures the specific texture of home, the expectation that it will always remain the same, and the feeling when it doesn’t. She carries the sadness of a lost sibling, and one of the strands of narrative works away at what happened to Jedda, last seen when they were just children. Winch explores the many ways that violence can be demonstrated, and August’s family has seen more than its fair share. Be White.’’ There is a direct link between these two points.

As a child many years before, Albert had been taken away from his family and community and placed in a home where the sign instructed them to: ‘‘Think White. Memory has been a recurring theme in Winch’s writing, and the passing down of stories is important when everything – land, language, kin – is taken. Long before she stepped into that fish and chip shop, and before the words were spoken, that abuse existed.

In one short but memorable scene, August is on the receiving end of verbal abuse when a man tells her that she doesn’t belong on the land. The complicated history of this stretch of land encompasses those whose intentions have been good but who are nonetheless working within poisoned systems, and Winch shows deft control of manifold concerns as she exposes the conundrum of judging these people over time.Īt this point in history, it is hard to envisage nationalism as anything but a pervasive evil.

While the mining company prepares for demolition, well-meaning hippies chain themselves to tractors and fences, and Winch illustrates the ways in which white allies can both help and hinder. Interspersed with his story is that of his granddaughter August, in England, about to turn 30 with ‘‘nothing to show’’, who decides to leave her dishwashing job and return to her family and their land.Īugust’s ancestral land has been claimed by a mining company, but if she can find artefacts proving her family’s long connection to the land then they might be able to stay. With a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, Albert Gondiwindi is chronicling his full life by creating a book of words and their meanings, a dictionary of the language of his people. Tara June Winch's second novel The Yield.

The yield tara june winch