A magnificent novel about fate, Australia and what it means to be human... it just happens to be narrated by a galah called Lucky.
It's 1969 and a remote coastal town in Western Australia is poised to play a pivotal part in the moon landing. Perched on the red dunes of its outskirts looms the great Dish: a relay for messages between Apollo 11 and Houston, Texas.
Radar technician Evan Johnson and his colleagues stare, transfixed, at the moving images on the console -although his glossy young wife, Linda, seems distracted. Meanwhile the people of Port Badminton have gathered to watch Armstrong's small step on a single television sitting centre stage in the old theatre. The Kelly family, a crop of redheads, sit in rare silence. Roo shooters at the back of the hall squint through their rifles to see the tiny screen.
I'm in my cage on the Kelly's back verandah. I sit here, unheard, underestimated, biscuit crumbs on my beak. But fate is a curious thing. For just as Evan Johnson's story is about to end (and perhaps with a giant leap), my story prepares to take flight...
Dedication: To the memory of my father Brian Sorensen
'With an analysis of Tracy Sorensen's The Lucky Galah (2018), I ask how we can respect and acknowledge Aboriginal ownership and sovereignty without appropriation, exoticization, or trivialization. I suggest that Sorensen does this in her novel by imagining the unknowable voice of an animal. The novel uses the viewpoint of a galah and the story of an Aboriginal woman who adopts her. Using Gerald Vizenor's idea of survivance, I discuss how animal voices offer a way to "walk with" other people and species through the devices of speculative fiction, continuing my work with science fiction that imagines ways of exchanging an acknowledgment of mutual personhood without perfect understanding of either one by the other, employing what I call the amborg gaze.' (Publication abstract)
'In 1969, in a quintessentially Australian town on the remote north-west coast, the locals prepare to celebrate their role in the moon landing. In 2000, as the townsfolk brace themselves for a cyclone, Lucky, this novel’s pink and grey narrator, uses transmissions from a satellite dish tuned to galah frequency to make sense of what she saw and heard from her cage in the 1960s. Quirky? Unbelievable? Tracy Sorensen’s The Lucky Galah upsets preconceptions in a smart and charming account of a human population on the cusp of radical social transformation. (Introduction)
'There’s much more to Tracy Sorensen’s impressive debut than just an original premise.'
'Tracy Sorensen's 'The Lucky Galah' (Picador, March) recounts the lives of ordinary Australians from the 1960s until the 2000s, as narrated by a galah called Lucky. The conceit is handled 'with a deft touch so that the characters come to life as vividly as the ideas', writes reviewer Lorien Kaye. She spoke to the author.' (Introduction)
'In 1969, in a quintessentially Australian town on the remote north-west coast, the locals prepare to celebrate their role in the moon landing. In 2000, as the townsfolk brace themselves for a cyclone, Lucky, this novel’s pink and grey narrator, uses transmissions from a satellite dish tuned to galah frequency to make sense of what she saw and heard from her cage in the 1960s. Quirky? Unbelievable? Tracy Sorensen’s The Lucky Galah upsets preconceptions in a smart and charming account of a human population on the cusp of radical social transformation. (Introduction)
'Tracy Sorensen's 'The Lucky Galah' (Picador, March) recounts the lives of ordinary Australians from the 1960s until the 2000s, as narrated by a galah called Lucky. The conceit is handled 'with a deft touch so that the characters come to life as vividly as the ideas', writes reviewer Lorien Kaye. She spoke to the author.' (Introduction)
'There’s much more to Tracy Sorensen’s impressive debut than just an original premise.'
'With an analysis of Tracy Sorensen's The Lucky Galah (2018), I ask how we can respect and acknowledge Aboriginal ownership and sovereignty without appropriation, exoticization, or trivialization. I suggest that Sorensen does this in her novel by imagining the unknowable voice of an animal. The novel uses the viewpoint of a galah and the story of an Aboriginal woman who adopts her. Using Gerald Vizenor's idea of survivance, I discuss how animal voices offer a way to "walk with" other people and species through the devices of speculative fiction, continuing my work with science fiction that imagines ways of exchanging an acknowledgment of mutual personhood without perfect understanding of either one by the other, employing what I call the amborg gaze.' (Publication abstract)
