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'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)
Notes
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Dedication: For my ngurrambaa
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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
Other Formats
- Large print.
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
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January–February no. 428 2021; (p. 42)
— Review of Song of the Crocodile 2020 single work novel -
Pip Newling Reviews Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;
— Review of Song of the Crocodile 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
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , October 2020;
— Review of Song of the Crocodile 2020 single work novel
-
Nardi Simpson, Song of the Crocodile
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 17-23 October 2020;
— Review of Song of the Crocodile 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
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , October 2020;
— Review of Song of the Crocodile 2020 single work novel -
Cross Over into Campgrounds : An Original Début by Nardi Simpson
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January–February no. 428 2021; (p. 42)
— Review of Song of the Crocodile 2020 single work novel -
Pip Newling Reviews Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;
— Review of Song of the Crocodile 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.'
Awards
- 2021 shortlisted Voss Literary Prize
- 2021 shortlisted Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction
- 2021 winner Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award
- 2021 shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award — Book of the Year
- 2021 longlisted Colin Roderick Award
- Aboriginal Gamilaraay AIATSIS ref. (D23) (NSW SH55-12) language