Book Review: Desert Tracks, by Marly Wells and Linda Wells

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A magical journey, a heartwarming tale, and a good read guaranteed!

Feature image credit: Magabala Books

‘Have you ever gotten lost in a book?’

This is the question that Linda and Marly Wells, a Central Australian mother-daughter writing duo, ask in their Daisy Utemorrah Award-winning young adult novel Desert Tracks.

Millie is a young, proud First Nations teen, seeking to know more about her past, both personal and cultural. She finds more than she expected when she borrows the book with the same title as this one. Caught up in the story of three young people — two First Nations and one white colonial — she is whisked away not just by the story, but by a willy willy which transports her to the Alice Springs of 1924.

It is in this timeline that she learns truths that have not been fully explained to her at school. Truths about massacres, stolen children, the destruction of culture, and the treatment of those children with mixed genealogy — or, as they were cruelly called: half-castes.

Not all truths are harsh; Millie finds a connection to the past she never expected and finds a way to show the past that there is hope for the future. Connecting to culture, the land, and family, she realises that not all that was taken has been lost, but that there is still much work to be done.

Linda and Marly Wells have taken on a difficult subject — that of Australia’s dark racially biased and culturally destructive past — and found a way to guide young people into looking at Australian history, beyond the standard whitewashed stories.

They include the Traditional Languages of the Walpiri and Arrernte peoples, as well as phonetics of Traditional Owners speaking English, which gives the novel a satisfying realism — much like an Irvine Welsh novel, without the strong language.

With Linda’s academic background and Marly’s lived experience as a Warlpiri woman of both white and black lineage, this novel speaks with honesty, sincerity, and crafted good humour. It is a magical journey, a heartwarming tale, and a good read guaranteed!

Reviewed by Glen Christie

The views expressed in this review belong to the author and not Glam Adelaide, its affiliates, or employees.