The Roving Party

February 17, 2014
In this debut novel set in 1829 Tasmania, John Batman is leading a roving party into the wild to hunt down uncivilized Aborigines for the Governor. He and his manservant Gould have conscripted indigenous Dharugs and criminals to help them in their search, because they know the bushcraft required to track them. Included is the Vandemonian Black Bill, a former member of the Plindermairhemener clan who was raised as a white man and a fierce fighter. While Batman is content to hunt down the dark skins, there is one in particular they are aiming to kill, Manalargena, the warrior and chief, and maybe even witch, of the Plindermairhemener clan. Wilson uses this group of morally corrupt men to examine a dark time in the nation's history. For all his brooding ferocity, Bill remains the moral center of the party, protecting even the lowest of men in the party. Yet the novel requires great focus on the part of the reader to glean any moral lessons from it. From the use of bare punctuation, in the style of Cormac McCarthy, to the obscure and unexplained use of 19th century names and language it becomes a tedious chore to trudge through the wilderness with the roving party.

February 15, 2014
Wilson's debut is a grim and bloody tone poem that follows the historical figure John Batman and a motley assemblage of men through the Tasmanian bush as they hunt Aborigines in 1829. The group consists of four raggedy white convicts, two "Parramatta men"--natives from the Australian mainland who serve as trackers--and Black Bill, the arguable protagonist, a Tasmanian Aborigine. Black Bill, we are told, was raised by a white man, but he retains knowledge of clan language and ways and the ability to survive in the bush. The men of the roving party seek to trade "blacks" for government money or land grants, and their prized goal is Manalargena, a crafty leader and "witch," powerful within his clan. But most of the book is given to roving, roving for days and days. The prose is highly descriptive, but adjectives often seem chosen to maximize gloominess rather than provide a clear picture, and readers in the U.S. may have trouble envisioning landscapes covered in a litany of unfamiliar flora. One thing is clear: The roving party is consistently cold, wet, hungry and underequipped. Moral questions are largely suspended, though there is no sense of glory in the proceedings. Batman has an almost charming unapologetic quality, interested merely in the task at hand, neither its inventor nor opponent. Black Bill is more mercurial; it is difficult and intriguing to parse out his loyalties, and the question is mostly left up to the reader's imagination. When the roving party does come into contact with clanspeople, the action is messy and horrifying. Wilson gives special, gruesome attention to the massacre of dogs. For neither the faint of heart nor those who prefer strong plots, Wilson's work will nonetheless gratify fans of more bleak and rugged times.

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February 15, 2014
In this novel drawn from historical accounts, the governor of Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, commissions the Roving Party to exterminate Aborigines in 1829. Leading the party is John Batman, a ruthless, though practical man whose motive isn't genocide but, rather, land grants and money. The rest of the party consists of a sad but vicious stripling, Gould; two Aboriginal trackers; four convicts, in a land where everyone is a convict; and the extraordinary Black Bill, an Aborigine raised as a European and the smartest, and most formidable, of the lot. The party wreaks havoc consistently in harrowing scenes, but at times you can almost sympathize with them, or at least with their desperation. And the novel has a white whale at its core in the form of the fierce, near-mystical warrior Manalargena. Australian first-novelist Wilson writes beautifully, equally expert in describing the magical land as he is with Aboriginal dialect, but his story, at least in the U.S., will inevitably be compared to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian (1985). It comes up short of that but is certainly worthy of recommendation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)