The Roving Party by Rohan Wilson

John Batman, ruthless, singleminded; four convicts, the youngest still only a stripling; Gould, a downtrodden farmhand; two free black trackers; and powerful, educated Black Bill, brought up from childhood as a white man, this is the roving party and their purpose is massacre.

With promises of freedom, land grants and money, each is willing to risk his life for the prize.

Passing over many miles of tortured country, the roving party searches for Aborigines, taking few prisoners and killing freely, Batman never abandoning the visceral intensity of his hunt. And all the while, Black Bill pursues his personal quarry, the much-feared warrior, Manalargena.

This month’s book divided our group in a clear ‘loved it/hated it’ form. A handful of us, although admitting the horror of the storyline, nevertheless found the writing, characterisation and realistic setting a pleasure to read. And where some found the lack of punctuation difficult, others found the narrative flowing and well fitted to the character style.

There seemed to be a deficiency of emotional punch for some of our readers. They could not be moved by any of the roving party or their quarry and Anne went so far as to pronounce it ‘boring’ and ‘pretentious’. This in complete contrast to Jeanette’s ‘marvellous’ and ‘stunning’.

The imagery held strong for the book’s fans though and we found that Wilson’s writing draws a clear and far from glamorous picture of this alpha-male world, with small and subtle reminders that these characters are human, regardless of what they find themselves doing. And as a reader you are forced to acknowledge their weaknesses, and dare I say it, feel some empathy for them!

Our discussion traveled through the obvious territory of racial discrimination and genocide, but also some interesting historical details from Tasmania’s past, sorting out the fiction from facts.

Short-listed for numerous awards and winner of last year’s Vogel Literary Prize, The Roving Party has found its place in Australian literature, if not into all of our club members' hearts.