Ratings1
Average rating4
Four and a half stars.
This is a gorgeous, gorgeous book that feels so personally relevant to me.
It is a story of healing, and place, and identity, and family.
Davidson is a wonderfully engaging writer, introspective and descriptive, evoking the familiar (to me) landscapes I myself grew up in, and travelled to, and with similar approaches to life and living.
When I watched the film adaptation of Davidson's Tracks and later read the book, I felt an incredible representation of myself onscreen and on the page that I had not felt before, and I had this feeling again in this memoir.
For those with maybe less personal common ground with Robinson's life, you will still find plenty of value here. Literature lovers will be drawn in by Davidson's accounts of her experiences living with and being mentored by Doris Lessing, her acquaintance and influence on Bruce Chatwin, her tumultous relationship and influence on Salman Rushdie (who is never mentioned by name), and her decades long relationship with Rajput political figure Narendra Singh Bhati.
The book jumps between time and place, but these movements are not stilted, but rather fluid, and adept and somewhat evocative of the dynamics of memory - a testament to Davidson's narrative skill.
I also loved Davidson's way of speaking about and evoking generational attitudes and zeitgeists in Australia, and I felt this contributed to my understanding of these generational shifts and differences in a way that added insight into my own family and experiences as someone of a younger generation.
Highly recommend!