 First edition | |
| Author | Jon Cleary |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Bruce Petty |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Collins |
Publication date | 1955 |
| Pages | 320 |
| Preceded by | The Climate of Courage |
| Followed by | The Green Helmet |
Justin Bayard is a 1955 novel by Australian author Jon Cleary about a policeman working in the Kimberley region. [1] It was Cleary's sixth novel.
Justin Bayard is a mounted policeman in the Kimberley escorting an aboriginal warrior, Emu Foot, back to headquarters at Fitzroy Crossing for murdering another aboriginal. Emu Foot is being pursued by warriors from the Kapunda tribe seeking revenge. Bayard is attacked by Kapundas and is badly injured, despite killing several of them. He takes refuge at an isolated cattle homestead Kootapatamba, owned by Tad Kirkbridge.
Bayard soon realises he has walked into a tense domestic situation: Kirkbridge is unhappily married to the neurotic Julie, who is cheating on him with their neighbour, Crispin, and encouraging him to sell Kootapatamba. The head stock manager is Ned Palady whose mixed race daughter Blanche takes a shine to Bayard. Crispin is trying to persuade Kirkbridge to join him in a new method of transporting cattle. Emu Foot is kept prisoner in a boab tree that has been hollowed out but ultimately escapes.
Bayard falls in love with Blanche and fights off another attack from Kapundas. Julie is killed by a spear to the back and Bayard interrogates members of the homestead. He discovers that the killer is Left Hand Spider, an aboriginal stockman who did not want Julie to see Kootapatamba. Spider is killed fleeing Bayard. Emu Foot is also killed by Kapundas.
Bayard and Blanche get married. Tad Kirkbridge sells the homestead to Blanche and her father and Bayard decides to work on it as head stockman.
Cleary researched the book by visiting the Kimberley in March 1954 with his wife, following an extended period of living overseas. [2]
The novel was generally well received by critics. [3] [4] and was Cleary's third novel to be published in the US. The reviewer from the New York Times commented that "Mr Cleary knows his trade; he is a shrewd and intelligent operator. But I wish he would set his heights higher." [5]
The Bulletin called it "a considerable improvement over anything he [Cleary] had hitherto done... Beneath it all throbs the steady pulse of the great engines of the “Saturday Evening Post’’; and if they don’t know how to regulate a popular story, no one does." [6]
It was banned in Ireland. [7]
The novel was later filmed as Dust in the Sun (1958), which relocated the action to the Northern Territory. [8] Cleary had little to do with the film even though director Lee Robinson had worked for him in the Army; as late as 2006 he claimed he had never seen it. [9]
The novel was serialised on radio in 1956 with Ray Barrett reading it. [10]
Jedda, released in the UK as Jedda the Uncivilised, is a 1955 Australian film written, produced and directed by Charles Chauvel. His last film, it is notable for being the first to star two Aboriginal actors, Robert Tudawali and Ngarla Kunoth in the leading roles. It was also the first Australian feature film to be shot in colour.
Robert Tudawali, also known as Bobby Wilson and Bob Wilson, was an Australian actor and Indigenous activist. He is known for his leading role in the 1955 Australian film Jedda, which made him the first Indigenous Australian film star, and also his position as Vice-President of the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights.
Jon Stephen Cleary was an Australian writer and novelist. He wrote numerous books, including The Sundowners (1951), a portrait of a rural family in the 1920s as they move from one job to the next, and The High Commissioner (1966), the first of a long series of popular detective fiction works featuring Sydney Police Inspector Scobie Malone. A number of Cleary's works have been the subject of film and television adaptations.
Jandamarra or Tjandamurra, known to European settlers as Pigeon, was an Aboriginal Australian man of the Bunuba people who led one of many organised armed insurrections against the European colonisation of Australia. Initially employed as a tracker for the police, he became a fugitive when he was forced to capture his own people. He led a three-year campaign against police and European settlers, achieving legendary status for his hit and run tactics and his abilities to hide and disappear. Jandamarra was eventually killed by another tracker at Tunnel Creek on 1 April 1897. His body was buried by his family at the Napier Range, where it was placed inside a boab tree. Jandamarra's life has been the subject of two novels, Ion Idriess's Outlaws of the Leopold (1952) and Mudrooroo's Long Live Sandawarra (1972), a non-fiction account based on oral tradition, Jandamurra and the Bunuba Resistance, and a stage play.
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Moola Bulla Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Halls Creek and 150 kilometres (93 mi) south of Warmun, and occupies an area of 6,600 square kilometres (2,548 sq mi). It bisects the watershed of the Fitzroy River and Ord Rivers.
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1955.