Jesustown by Paul Daley review - Getting underneath a white-washed story of Australia's challenging history

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, I was fed a very white-washed view of Australia's history. In primary school, we learned that the First Peoples of this country were hunter-gatherers who killed kangaroos with spears and boomerangs, and that Truganini was the last Tasmanian Aboriginal. In secondary school, Australian History commenced from white invasion and we were given a sense that there were no First Peoples left. Clearly, this was not true.

And fortunately we have made progress since then. But there is still a long way to go, especially in terms of truth-telling and acknowledging and accepting our violent pioneering past.

Journalist Paul Daley has never shied away from the truth. For decades he has worked to uncover the hidden history of oppression and erasure of First Peoples.

Now Daley has written a novel, Jesustown, which centres around the devastating and far-reaching impacts of white occupation on Australia's First Peoples.

The main protagonist, Patrick Renmark, is a high-profile popular historian. He's been living in England for years, making money out of popularised versions of history. But now his life is in tatters after a sordid affair and the tragic death of his son.

Seeking to escape public scrutiny, he accepts a publishing contract to write about his late grandfather, Renny (Nathaniel Renmark), a self-taught anthropologist who lived and worked among a group of Indigenous Australians (The People) in "Jesustown", a fictional community in remote northern Australia.

In that community, Renny still has legendary status for orchestrating a peace deal between the local peoples and the government, thereby averting a massacre. But Renny was a complex and flawed man (much like Patrick himself), and his motivations were not always pure.

When Patrick returns to Jesustown, to explore his grandfather's archives, Renny's actions and rationalisations are gradually revealed, exposing a dark and condemning underbelly of murky history. The town reflects the atmosphere of the narrative. You can feel the heat and dust.

Much of Renny's story is told through old tape-recordings that Patrick discovers in his grandfather's shack. At times, this device feels overused, but there is much important story that Daley wants to transfer here. With Renny long dead and his archives in a mess, the tapes offer a convenient way to expose the truth.

Renny's dictated confessional reveals the flaws and weaknesses of the man, as well as the convolutions of his actions and long-buried secrets. The tapes also offer insights into Renny's friendships and relationships with The People, as well as their generous and incomprehensible forgiveness for what he did to them.

This forgiveness is undeserved. But perhaps that is part of the message Daley is trying to convey. Great wrongs were inflicted on the First Peoples of this country, however perhaps it is only through truth-telling, acceptance and the possibility of forgiveness that we can find a united way forward.

Writing First Nations characters is not without risks. Prominent Australian Indigenous writers hold conflicting views on whether white writers are entitled to do this. However, Daley's portrayal of First Peoples is sensitive and sympathetic, with a view to exposing the truth of the betrayal and manipulation by white people.

Jesustown is a bold and ambitious book that digs beneath the surface of white-sanitised history. It tackles challenging and confronting material, but Daley manages to infuse the narrative with flashes of dry wit, stark humour and relatable humanity. He brings Patrick to life with a strong and vibrant first-person voice.

Patrick is not very likeable, but likeability is not the point here. The real meaning lies in history and mistakes. Secrets. Trust undermined. Lies woven. Precious artefacts stolen. Wrong-doing, and its implications for others. Guilt and regret. It's also about truth-telling and reparation. Exposing wrongs. Not just in the early colonisation of this country, but also now and ongoing.

Beneath all this, Daley offers humanity, revealing the terrible flaws that reside within all of us. But this is not an excuse. He does not forgive Renny and his anthropologist colleagues for their weaknesses and errors. Instead, he claims ownership of white historical actions, as we all should.

Jesustown is a brave book that acknowledges past betrayals of the First Peoples of this country and attempts to correct white-washed versions of history. My hope is that it will start to recast misperceptions of what took place during the invasion of Australia, and how it affected so many First Peoples in so many ways that we are only just beginning to recognise.