Boomerang Books Info Bank

Families Behind Bars (Kay Danes, New Holland, $29.95 pb, ISBN 9781741106466, May) ***

Kay Danes, an Australian who was falsely arrested and detained for gem theft in Laos, has told her horrific battle of endurance in her previous book Deliver Us from Evil. Now a prominent social justice ambassador, in this new book she delves deeper to disclose the sufferings and strength of others detained in foreign prisons and the stories of their family’s struggles. Danes has an authoritative voice filled with passion, and she has a personal involvement in many of the cases in the book, which include those of Schapelle Corby and the Bali 9. The aims of the book are obvious as she says she wishes to use her experiences ‘to help create awareness about injustice, social issues, personal safety and overcoming adversity.’ However, the book’s heavy early focus on the legalities of detainment, written in a clinical, bureaucratic voice, affects its readability, as we don’t connect emotionally with the information. There are so many short stories with so few details, readers are swamped, and it’s hard to build empathy. The audience the book would most appeal to is those in a similar ituation of detainment and their families; this is made very evident by the constant advice for ‘other families’ mentioned throughout.

Lucy Meredith is a casual bookseller for Angus and Robertson and a freelance writer

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

Tags: kay danes