The White Girl

Odette Brown lives, as she always has, on the fringe of a small segregated town. Her daughter Lila disappeared not long after giving birth, and Odette has raised the girl, Sissy, by herself, staying out of view of officials who take light-skinned Aboriginal children into state care. That uneasy peace ends with the arrival of a policeman who means to apply every rule. When Odette needs an operation in the city, she cannot bear to leave Sissy where she could be seized, so she gambles everything on taking her along, hoping to find Lila and to keep the two of them together. Set at the start of the 1960s, the novel shows the indignities Aboriginal people faced under the guardianship laws and the support of the community around them.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

272 pages in the original

Genres

Historical, Family, Politics (assigned by AI)

Set in

Australia, 1960s

First published

2019

Author's age

62 when first published

ISBN

9780702260384 (University of Queensland Press, Australia)

9780702263057 (University of Queensland Press, Australia)

9780063213524 (HarperVia, United States)

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