My Place (An Australian Classic) [Paperback]

Sally Morgan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2010 | ISBN-10: 0949206318 | ISBN-13: 978-0949206312

Looking at the views and experiences of three generations of indigenous Australians, this autobiography unearths political and societal issues contained within Australia's indigenous culture. Sally Morgan traveled to her grandmother’s birthplace, starting a search for information about her family. She uncovers that she is not white but aborigine—information that was kept a secret because of the stigma of society. This moving account is a classic of Australian literature that finally frees the tongues of the author’s mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Growing up in Perth, Australia, in an impoverished, but lively and chaotic household dominated by her mother and grandmother, Morgan was 15 before she realized that she and her four siblings were of mixed Aboriginal descent. In this autobiography, she describes her efforts to identify with and record her family heritage. Oral histories gathered from her reticent and still fearful mother and grandmother, anxious to shield their children from the social stigma of their origins, are supplemented with accounts from relatives she tracked down in Northwest Australia's Aboriginal Reserves and livestock stations. They vividly describe the suffering caused by a government policy that took half-caste Aboriginal children away from their mothers. Although some Aborigines have successfully competed in Australian society, the author seems to agree with her uncle's contention that colonialism is not yet over and does not accord Aborigines either equalityes pecially land rightsor freedom to pursue their own way of life.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Morgan is 15 when she discovers that she is not white but aboriginea fact that has been kept secret because of society's stigma. Rather than tell the children about their heritage, her mother and grandmother have let them believe early ancestors emigrated to Australia from India. The teen-aged Morgan, having been an indifferent student at best, throws herself into her studies and then single-mindedly embarks on a search for her roots. Her quest is hampered by her grandmother's refusal to discuss the past but helped by an elderly great uncle, who is an accomplished raconteur, and leads her to the past and to other people. Morgan is a gifted storyteller, and this story is sad, triumphant, hilarious, and sensitive. For all public library collections. Joan Hinkemeyer, Englewood P.L., Col.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Fremantle Press (April 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0949206318
• ISBN-13: 978-0949206312
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #244,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National > Australian
  • #94 in Books > History > Australia & Oceania > New Zealand

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing personal history of one woman's maternal family, July 4, 2000

By 

Kali "bengaligirl" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My place (Paperback)

Sally Morgan writes from the heart as she explores her family's hidden Aboriginal history in a book that spares no punches. My Place is all about identity and what racism and prejudice can do to a people. The white settlers who colonized Australia have systematically tried to bury the Aboriginal people and their way of life but somehow against all odds they have survived, and people like Sally Morgan are standing up to be counted as the descendants lost tribes of mixed race people who were never given a chance to choose who they wanted to live with. Sally Morgan writes with startling clarity as she describes her childhood with her half Aboriginal Grandmother who would never admit to being native, and often told her Grandchildren to lay claim to an Indian heritage rather than admit the truth. Sally's Grandmother's fears lay deep within her own childhood when she was taken away from her mother, and it was this fear she passed onto Sally's mother who was three quarter's white. Both women were terrified of white authority and the power it had to tear families apart. My Place is a haunting, true story of one woman's search for her roots in a country that saw Aboriginal blood as a taint rather than a celebration. We need more books like this on our bookshelves, and even more people to read them...

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written but interesting, May 27, 2004

By 

Bron Mitchell "bronm" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Place (An Australian Classic) (Paperback)

Reading the other reviews on here, I find it interesting to note that just about everyone gives it either 5 stars or 1 star, but there's almost nothing in between. It's quite true that it is a poorly written book - the writing is dull and prosaic, and there's little to recommend it from a literary point of view. Had I not had to read it for a class, I doubt I would have bothered finishing it. The narrative of searching and redemption which runs throughout is so predictable and cliché that I have the feeling that if this had been an American story it would have been snatched up by Oprah's Book Club long ago. Having said that, however, I think there are some important things about this book that probably need consideration.

More than the book itself, what I find interesting is that this was a huge bestseller in Australia. And I mean HUGE. She may well be the highest grossing Indigenous author in the country, although I'd be guessing. The fact that so many people read the book says something about the mood of White Australia over the last twenty years, with this country trying to come to grips with its shameful past. I've inclined to believe that most of this is an attempt to ease collective white guilt than actually taking steps to reconcile and compensate for over two centuries of oppression. Sally Morgan's book is popular, I think, because she doesn't actually challenge her audience to move much beyond their comfort zone, and the construction of Aboriginality that she presents is quite problematic, stereotypical, and firmly entrenched in the past.

The book has attracted quite a lot of controversy in Australia, mostly in academic circles, but occasionally this rears its head in the mainstream media (for example, the issue of the Drake-Brockmans demanding DNA testing to prove Morgan is not descended from their ancestors). The idea of the 'truthfulness' of the book is largely a question of genre more than anything else: is it an autobiography or a non-fiction novel? 'My Place' raises a lot of questions about how we define these categories, and about the nature of history and memory work.

People might be interested to know that the book also attracted a considerable amount of backlash from the Aboriginal community itself: she is often criticised for asserting an Aboriginal identity that, by her own admission, she did not grow up with. Unaware of her Indigenous origins for most of her youth, she claims her Aboriginality without ever having lived with what it really meant to be Aboriginal in the 1950s-70s. Because she has fairer skin than the stereotypical Aboriginal person, she had the luxury of pretending to be of a different nationality - an option simply not available to many Indigenous Australians - and was thus not subjected to the same level of prejudice which she might otherwise have been.

If you're interested in Australian history and Aboriginal issues you should probably read Sally Morgan's 'My Place', not because it's good writing, but because it has certainly been a landmark in the recent history of Australian literature. However, I also suggest trying to lay your hands on some of the material which critiques Morgan's work in order to gain a more balanced perspective of Indigenous Australia. Alternatively, for an all-round better account of what is now known as the Stolen Generation, try Doris Pilkington's 'Rabbit Proof Fence', or the film by the same name. If read with a critical mind, 'My Place' is worthy of a look, but it is highly problematic taken at face value.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "real" Australian history is finally told!, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: My Place (Paperback)

My Place is an intensely personal account of Aboriginal history in Australia. We discover along with Sally what it meant and means to be an Aboriginal in past and present Aust. society as well as how their identity has been shaped and altered by the white pioneers. Being an Australian, I thought it was a necessary and enriching look into the largely untold history of Australia. It is certainly far from the history I got taught in school. Thoroughly recommmend it!