The Sun Walks Down

I just finished The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane. So good!

This was on the Walter Scott Prize short list, which I think I first heard about from Books and Things.

Warning: spoilers ahead. Turn back now!

This book is about 19th century Australia, but the title is from Swedish. "In Sweden, the sun doesn't set, it walks down." That was revealed about halfway through the book and it just totally makes sense!

Here in North America, we have one kind of racism towards Native Americans and another sort of racism towards Africans brought here as slaves. The racism Anglo-Australians show towards Australian aborigines in this book feels like a sort of combination of the two. Like Australian aborigines experienced some of the worst things that Native Americans experienced and also some of the worst things that African-Americans experienced. Argh, people suck everywhere!

I was so worried that Foster was going to injure (or even kill) Karl or Bess or both, but it all turned okay in the end. I was really worried that the lesson being teed up was "don't call the police, that will only make things worse," which any African American will tell you, but it was fine. Racism abounds, but no one dies.