Publisher's Synopsis
Award-winning Aboriginal author Miki Mitayn traverses the zone between harsh reality and transcendental wisdom in this astonishing, original novel about the real-world dilemmas of channelling and mediumship.
Listening to spirits channelled by her wife is messing with the doctor's head.
Mari talks in her sleep all night. So, Dr. Nerida Green plays a recording of her wife's 'sleep talk' to her friend, a linguistics professor she used to smoke bongs with. He asks where Mari learned to pronounce Ancient Siamese and archaic Gaelic. Then stops responding to Nerida's texts and calls.
Mari and Nerida live in an extreme, unique environment at a remote Aboriginal community in the Central Australian desert. It suits them.
Dr Nerida, a former political activist, is an urban Aboriginal lesbian married to Mari, a rural German of Roma and Jewish descent. Their complex histories might help them relate to the Aboriginal people Nerida cares for, living on the frontline of dispossession. The government has banned alcohol and porn from the Indigenous communities in the Territory.
Will the women be arrested for their lesbian books? For cherry schnapps in the Black Forest cake?
Meanwhile, Nerida is fascinated and horrified by Aedgar, the spirit Mari channels.
He was gay five hundred years ago, when people were tortured to death for it. Before that, he says, he helped create the Earth.
Nerida is not sure what to believe. Impressed by his passion for the planet, she often wants to work less and get more sleep.
Mari, frustrated by the New Age ideas coming out of her mouth when she'd not around, is furious and ready to fight as soon as the enemy makes himself clearer.
As Aedgar reveals more of his insights and powers, Nerida's reality is changing. When he foretells a tragedy that must not be prevented, she has to question her role in bringing his dark knowledge to the world.
