by Boomert - The Land I Came Through Last by Robert Gray 13 Jan 2010

Having listened to Robert Gray talk at the Salamanca Writers’ Festival once in Hobart I was very keen to read this autobiography and my expectations were both rewarded and redefined. The writing is quite wonderful and Gray slowly builds up a picture of his mother and father with sparse pointed prose. His life is not easy, his father is an alcoholic, his mother copes wonderfully by following the Jehovah Witnesses religion and Gray has unreliable health. His health allows him to miss school and a freedom to wander and observe and to develop an imagination that is the staple of every writer. Yet all the time Gray has a good life brought about by his ability not to let his situation get him down, and to allow his intellect to be in control. He can identify the moment where he realised what we perceive can be felt most intently through words. The moment of realisation comes from being read The Wind in the Willows in class when he is 12 years old. Long may teachers (and parents) read to children. This is a wonderful recounting of an Australian life and is a worthy addition to any good reader’s bookshelf.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker