THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH

The son of an aboriginal mother and a white father is taught European ambition by a missionary. The clash of cultures helps lead the man to commit a series of bloody murders. This is the novelization of a historical incident that took place in turn-of-the-century Australia. Keneally, winner of the Booker Prize for Schindler's List, pushes the language and listener hard, forcing us to understand if not condone. The Australian idiom, combined with Kerr's accent--both are wildly appropriate--made it necessary for this listener, an American jogger, to go through the first tape twice. The aboriginal chant with which the recording opens is repeated at the close, by which time the music is freighted with meaning. B.H.C. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC/JAN 99]