JULIE JANSON is a Burruberongal woman of Darug Aboriginal nation. Her career as a playwright began when she wrote and directed plays in remote Australian Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. She is now a novelist and award-winning poet. Her latest novel Compassion is the sequel to her Barbara Jefferis Award shortlisted novel Benevolence and explores the lives of Aboriginal women during the 1800s in colonial New South Wales.

What are you reading now, and why?

I’m reading Chris Hammer’s Silver, a children’s book Walking with the Seasons in Kakadu, Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God and I’m trying to read Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy. I recently read the wonderful Women and Children by Tony Birch, the heartbreaking Killing for Country by David Marr and Gary Lonesborough’s insightful YA We Didn’t Think It Through.

What books have made you laugh?

Puckoon by Spike Milligan and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.

What are some of your favourite childhood books?

The Red Balloon, The Secret Garden, and Winnie the Pooh. Then when I was older I read all the plays by Ionesco, Tennesee Williams and Eugene O’Neil. I was a peculiar teenager.

What are some of your favourite historical fiction series?

The Tasmanian Trilogy by Jock Serong and Judy Nunn’s historical sagas.

What books have gotten under your skin?
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and all of Dickens.

Which authors do you greatly admire?

Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Xavier Herbert, Nardi Simpson, Tony Birch, Jack Davis, Eva Johnson, Annie Proulx, Anthony Powers,
Alice Walker, on and on.

Your new book, Compassion, is a sequel to your award shortlisted novel, Benevolence. What inspired you to explore Aboriginal life in the 1800s in colonial NSW?

I felt that there was still some investigation to be carried out for my great-great-grandmother Mary Thomas who was born at the Blacktown Road Blacks’ camp in 1832. Benevolence took the story back to her mother who was a traditional Burruberongal woman of Darug nation. I wanted to find out what happened to the child who was abandoned at a prospect farm.

Part true history and part imagination. I found on TROVE that Mary Thomas (Eleanor James) was tried in the Windsor Magistrate’s court in the 1850s for three crimes: first for stealing nine fowls, then for stealing cattle and last of all a herd of horses. That last crime was a hanging offence in the colony of NSW. Her male partner in crime was found guilty and taken to the Paramatta Insane Asylum where he died. I thought: Now this is a great story and I had to tell it!

Compassion is based on the true-life story of a female Darug horse thief – what kind of research did you undertake for this story?

Historical fiction requires a great deal of research both from history books, libraries such as the NSW State Library but also from oral history from Aboriginal Elders. I had carried out five years of extensive research for historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au while working as a researcher and this website is full of wonderful material. Also the appropriate First Nations protocols require consultation with the correct Indigenous groups and Nations, so I spent some time researching around the Newcastle area and spoke at length with Professor John Maynard and other Elders.

Were there any aspects of your own life and family that entered or inspired the characters and happenings in Compassion?

Family relationships always filter through in novels. My brother Brian suffered from terrible mental illness, but when he was young he was a beloved brother. In Compassion I tried to bring forward how we have love for family despite losing them to mental health issues. I also have my father and mother and childhood spent in the Boronia Park and Hawkesbury bush inside my head.

My father was a wonderful bushman and Aboriginal fisherman who died at 43 years old, too young! I celebrated his skills and courage in the novel. My mother, Joan, was passionate about us children getting a good public education, and she encouraged the reading of many books and art appreciation. Sometimes fiction writing unleashes deep psychological insights into the writer’s own life. It is not always easy for other family members to read. The wonderful writer Alex Miller said, ‘All novels are memoirs’. This is so true.

If given the opportunity to host a dinner party and invite six people, authors or not – alive or deceased – who would they be?

Annie Proulx – Author

Charles Dickens – author

Jack Davis – Playwright & Poet

Larrisa Behrendt – legal academic, writer, filmmaker and Indigenous rights advocate

Nardi Simpson – Yuwaalaraay storyteller and performer

Alice Walker – author