The Initiation: Synopsis of a novel
¨An abused boy is rescued by an aboriginal elder
who teaches him magic and bushcraft
to heal him.¨
What do you do when the most powerful person in town, the local policeman, is a violent, racist bully who abuses his son? Who will stand up for the boy? Charlie mysteriously arrives back in town with a message for the boy, Brian, from his deceased mother which convinces him to leave with the old man rather than face another beating from his drunken father. The Charlie is an aboriginal elder with a long standing relationship with Brian´s mother´s family. For generations they treated Charlie´s family and people with the respect and fairness due all people. Charlie´s world of Dreaming, law and magic collides with Constable Davis' world of power, fear and violence. Brian is a nexus which allows them to reconcile and communicate.
They travel to the magical Warrumbungles where Brian learns respect, concern and connection, new ways of love and power through bushcraft with the spirit breaths of the red kangaroo, the raven, the goanna and a waterfall. He learns to hunt, fish, gather bush-tucker, fight, shape-change, spirit-travel and communicate with the breath of the land. Most importantly he is healed from the loss of his mother and the betrayal by his father.
After ten days in the bush Brian comes back to civilisation to an uproar. A lost child found, everyone celebrating except his dad who just wants to kill Charlie, except that Charlie seems to have been dead since before the whole story started. The father and child fight. Brian is small but fast and his new sensitivities allow him to be like a sparrow chasing a crow away from its nest. His father can´t touch him, and though Brian won´t fight, he also won´t let his father beat him. The father comes to respect the boy´s new-found strengths. but it not quite so simple as you expect.
