The Roving Party

Author Rohan Wilson has written an impressive historical novel that has left me considering it as good a debut that I have ever read.

The main character is a Vandemonian born indigenous man called Black Bill. Bill is beholden to John Batman to assist in the hunting down of plangermaireener clansmen and women as part of the Black Wars that were part of the sad history of Van Diemen's Land. Along with a crew of convicts looking for their pass's to freedom and Aboriginal trackers from the mainland Wilson writes a tale of both brutality and beauty about this Roving Party intent on genocide and the rewards that would go with the capture of some of the clans people.

The book is many themed. Man's inhumanity to his fellow man looms large. Also covered is the deep spiritual aspect of knowing the value of the land that one is part of be that as an individual or through a clan. Black Bill for example never says what is on his mind in being part of the Roving Party with its murderous intents but as the reader I always got the impression he was torn between the old world and the new. The brutality of some of the events is written in such a way as to leave nothing to the imagination. This is countered with beautiful descriptions of the starkness of the country side and the extremely inclement weather that the protagonist's encounter on their journey. The seamlessness of the telling of the story and the description of the land was fantastic.

I was immersed from page one to the very end and recommend The Roving Party to anyone with any interest in the subject of Van Diemen's Land be that fact or fiction.