Book Club - Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie

Final Draft - Great Conversations

Melissa Lucashenko is a Miles Franklin award winning author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Her novels include Killing Darcy, Mullumbimby and Too Much Lip. Today we’re going to be discovering her latest, Edenglassie.

In the 1850’s Meanjin/Brisbane is a mix of people from across the world, some transported for hard time, others drawn to the region for economic gain. Since the invaders arrived the local Yagara people have viewed them with suspicion and curiosity, unsure whether they might ever be able to regain their ancestral lands.

Mulanyin has come to the area now known as Edenglassie and there he has discovered the beautiful Nita. Torn between his love and his home Mulanyin must navigate his path into manhood and the fraught times he finds himself in.

In 2024 Meanjin/Brisbane is on the verge of two hundred years if settler colonial occupation. That might mean more to Granny Eddie if she wasn’t stuck in the hospital waiting for whatever it is these doctors do. Eddie is more than a hundred years old and she’s got a few stories to tell about the city. But that doesn’t mean she’ll give up her secrets easily and certainly not to the first white guy who asks.

Edengalssie weaves two tales separated by time but bound by place. Melissa Lucashenko takes us back to the beginnings of the occupied lands around Maiwar, which we now know as the Brisbane River. She reminds us that the land was not unoccupied and in fact these are the traditional lands of the Jagera and Turrball people.

Against the backdrop of struggle for dominance we meet Mulanyin and Nita. what follows is ostensibly a love story set to the rhythm of a land that is poised for violence.

Mulanyin is certain of his love for Nita but he is also eager to prove himself and unsure of the ways of the white people who are ignorant of the law and the land. Mulanyin and Nita will pursue their love but they must do so in a world that may not want them to succeed.

All these stories are so much history to the residents of Granny Eddie’s world but she knows the truth. That doesn’t mean she’s going to tell it straight. As Granny Eddie’s tales of early Brisbane bring her fame and notoriety she watches her niece Winona and her Doctor Johnny play out their own courting rituals. Johnny’s only recently discovered his own blak heritage and that won’t fly for Winona. She’s sick of people claiming heritage they haven’t earned and isn’t going to make it easy on him.

Edenglassie is a thought provoking, disarming and at times hilarious novel. Through the contrasting narratives Lucashenko effectively overthrows simplistic views of early colonial interventions and reclaims the story on behalf of the people whose land was stolen.

She gives us a time when perhaps history may have taken a different direction and allows us to understand the vicissitudes of time and power that shaped the world we live in today.

Fast forward to 2024 and Lucashenkpo reminds of the very real and ongoing history those events have created. Through Granny Eddie and particularly in the sparring between Winona and Johnny we see the ongoing pain and struggle to reconcile the past with a present and a future that does not tell the truth.

Edenglassie is a tremendous novel and one well worth the reading.