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A review by ayami
Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie
2.0
What a missed opportunity!
Veronica Gorrie has an important and poignant story to tell – she grew up in a largely dysfunctional family and later in life she became one of the few female Aboriginal police officers in Australia. Throughout her life she dealt with a horrifying amount of trauma, later amplified by the racist treatment she experienced while working in the force.
However, Gorrie's editor has failed her. The book I've read feels largely like a first draft, not a finished product. The style of writing itself is fine, though definitely more conversational than polished. However, the structure of the book is all over the place – multiple anecdotes that are introduced have no extra bearing on the narrative. The narrator jumps back and forth in time without clearly marking this for the reader. Important storytelling arcs are dropped half-way through never to be picked up again. I could go on and on. The result is a disjointed collection of difficult-to-follow anecdotes.
A skilled editor would have been able to rearrange the order of the book – maybe make the author's time in the police force the main skeleton of the story and then introduce flashbacks to her personal experiences from her childhood as a commentary? A good editor would also help Gorrie flesh out the main themes of her story, instead of dropping it all together and mixing haphazardly.
It hurts to rate it so low, because I can absolutely see what a gem of a book it could have been with some extra work. However, in the current version, I cannot recommend it to other readers.
Veronica Gorrie has an important and poignant story to tell – she grew up in a largely dysfunctional family and later in life she became one of the few female Aboriginal police officers in Australia. Throughout her life she dealt with a horrifying amount of trauma, later amplified by the racist treatment she experienced while working in the force.
However, Gorrie's editor has failed her. The book I've read feels largely like a first draft, not a finished product. The style of writing itself is fine, though definitely more conversational than polished. However, the structure of the book is all over the place – multiple anecdotes that are introduced have no extra bearing on the narrative. The narrator jumps back and forth in time without clearly marking this for the reader. Important storytelling arcs are dropped half-way through never to be picked up again. I could go on and on. The result is a disjointed collection of difficult-to-follow anecdotes.
A skilled editor would have been able to rearrange the order of the book – maybe make the author's time in the police force the main skeleton of the story and then introduce flashbacks to her personal experiences from her childhood as a commentary? A good editor would also help Gorrie flesh out the main themes of her story, instead of dropping it all together and mixing haphazardly.
It hurts to rate it so low, because I can absolutely see what a gem of a book it could have been with some extra work. However, in the current version, I cannot recommend it to other readers.