AustLit

'A Tear in the Soul is an ambitious book. Amanda Webster, born into a family of Kalgoorlie doctors and a doctor herself, is challenged about Australian racism at an elite writers’ retreat in Hawaii, so sets forth from the exceedingly comfortable surroundings of her eastern Australian homes (plural) to confront the racism she grew up with and reconnect with the mission kids she played with at primary school. The result is a book that is partly memoir, partly exposé of unconscious privilege, partly a means to personal reconciliation. The title comes from Webster’s realisation that hurting others causes “a tear in the soul that allows the essence of one’s humanity to leak out” (112) and that she belongs to a group that has caused such a wound.' (Introduction)