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Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Song of the Crocodile single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Song of the Crocodile
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Darnmoor, The Gateway to Happiness. The sign taunts a fool into feeling some sense of achievement, some kind of end- that you have reached a destination in the very least. Yet the sign states clearly, Darnmoor is the gateway, and merely a measure, the mark, a point on a road you begin to move closer to a place you might really want to be.

'Darnmoor is the home of the Billymil family, three generations who have lived in this 'gateway town'. Race relations between Indigenous and settler families are fraught, though the rigid status quo is upheld through threats and soft power rather than the overt violence of yesteryear.

'As progress marches inexorably onward, Darnmoor and its surrounds undergo rapid social and environmental changes, but as some things change, some stay exactly the same. Our protagonist characters are watched (and sometimes visited) by ancestral spirits and spirits of the recently deceased, who look out for their descendants and attempt to help them on the right path.

'When the town's secrets start to be uncovered the town will be rocked by a violent act that forever shatters a century of silence.

'Full of music, Gamillaray language and exquisite description, Song of The Crocodile is a lament to choice and change, and the unyielding land that sustains us all, if we can but listen to it.' (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

23282875
19730740
19567105

Notes

  • Dedication: For my ngurrambaa
  • Epigraph: 'our initiations continue, the bloodletting flows, the boy comes out and the man begins.' - Max Dulumunmun Harrison

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Hachette Australia , 2020 .
      image of person or book cover 5241669609784848400.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 448p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 29th September 2020
      ISBN: 9780733643743

Other Formats

Works about this Work

Nardi Simpson Kate Holden (interviewer), 2021 single work interview
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 13-19 February 2021;

'For Yuwaalaraay singer and writer Nardi Simpson, author of Song of the Crocodile, a sense of place is fundamental to all her work. By Kate Holden.' 

Cross Over into Campgrounds : An Original Début by Nardi Simpson Jane Sullivan , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January–February no. 428 2021; (p. 42)

— Review of Song of the Crocodile Nardi Simpson , 2020 single work novel
Pip Newling Reviews Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson Pip Newling , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;

— Review of Song of the Crocodile Nardi Simpson , 2020 single work novel

'To read Song of the Crocodile is to immerse yourself in an unfolding relationship to place. You may not recognise it immediately but the profound connection to place shared by Simpson through this story is a slow build to love, yearning, recognition and respect for Country.  The novel is a confident and accomplished debut by Nardi Simpson, a Yuwaalaraay woman best known for her singing and song writing as a member of the Sydney band the Stiff Gins. It is a profound intergenerational Australian story of family and Country that deserves to be as celebrated and well-read as Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet.' (Introduction)

Kate Grenville, Sofie Laguna, Julia Baird and Others : The 20 Best Australian Books of 2020 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 17 December 2020;
[Review] Song of the Crocodile Winnie Siulolovao Dunn , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , October 2020;

— Review of Song of the Crocodile Nardi Simpson , 2020 single work novel
Nardi Simpson, Song of the Crocodile Khalid Warsame , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 17-23 October 2020;

— Review of Song of the Crocodile Nardi Simpson , 2020 single work novel

'Yuwaalaraay author Nardi Simpson’s debut novel, Song of the Crocodile, begins with a vision of the sign welcoming visitors to the country town of Darnmoor, “the Gateway to Happiness”. “The sign taunts a fool into feeling some sense of achievement, that you have reached a destination at the very least,” writes Simpson, before continuing: “Yet … Darnmoor itself is nothing.”' (Publication summary)

[Review] Song of the Crocodile Winnie Siulolovao Dunn , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , October 2020;

— Review of Song of the Crocodile Nardi Simpson , 2020 single work novel
Cross Over into Campgrounds : An Original Début by Nardi Simpson Jane Sullivan , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January–February no. 428 2021; (p. 42)

— Review of Song of the Crocodile Nardi Simpson , 2020 single work novel
Pip Newling Reviews Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson Pip Newling , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;

— Review of Song of the Crocodile Nardi Simpson , 2020 single work novel

'To read Song of the Crocodile is to immerse yourself in an unfolding relationship to place. You may not recognise it immediately but the profound connection to place shared by Simpson through this story is a slow build to love, yearning, recognition and respect for Country.  The novel is a confident and accomplished debut by Nardi Simpson, a Yuwaalaraay woman best known for her singing and song writing as a member of the Sydney band the Stiff Gins. It is a profound intergenerational Australian story of family and Country that deserves to be as celebrated and well-read as Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet.' (Introduction)

Kate Grenville, Sofie Laguna, Julia Baird and Others : The 20 Best Australian Books of 2020 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 17 December 2020;
Nardi Simpson Kate Holden (interviewer), 2021 single work interview
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 13-19 February 2021;

'For Yuwaalaraay singer and writer Nardi Simpson, author of Song of the Crocodile, a sense of place is fundamental to all her work. By Kate Holden.' 

Last amended 29 Sep 2021 12:00:51
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