Alice, a painter, has a baby for the sole purpose of observing it and painting experiences from it. She is unemotional and cares little for others, even for her sister, Rachel.
Rachel was born with an imbalanced body: her right hand like a flipper, her right foot a club foot. However, Rachel refuses to feel depressed by this, much to their mother's chagrin. Their mother, Margaret, resented Rachel and tried to keep her away from Alice. Rachel knows how Alice feels, yet loves Alice all the same.
'The paper argues that the postcolonial settler/invader autobiography is a textual negotiation of-and-on an ambivalent site of utterance, with reference to A. B. Facey's A Fortunate Life and Merv Lilley's Gatton Man.' (Author's abstract)