Taboo: A Novel

Written by Kim Scott

Narrated by Kim Scott

Taboo takes place in the present day, in the rural South-West of Western Australia, and tells the story of a group of Noongar people who revisit, for the first time in many decades, a taboo place: the site of a massacre that followed the assassination, by these Noongar's descendants, of a white man who had stolen a black woman. They come at the invitation of Dan Horton, the elderly owner of the farm on which the massacres unfolded. He hopes that by hosting the group he will satisfy his wife's dying wishes and cleanse some moral stain from the ground on which he and his family have lived for generations.

But the sins of the past will not be so easily expunged.

We walk with the ragtag group through this taboo country and note in them glimmers of re-connection with language, lore, country. We learn alongside them how countless generations of Noongar may have lived in ideal rapport with the land. Taboo won four literary awards, was longlisted for four and shortlisted for three more. It is a novel of survival and renewal, as much as destruction; and, ultimately, of hope as much as despair.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Nov 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781541433168

Kim Scott

Kim Scott is the co-founder of an executive education firm and workplace comedy series, The Feedback Loop, based on her perenially bestselling book, Radical Candor: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean. Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter and other tech companies. She was a member of faculty at Apple University and before that led operations teams for AdSense, YouTube and DoubleClick at Google. Kim was a senior policy advisor at the FCC, managed a paediatric clinic in Kosovo, started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow and was an analyst on the Soviet Companies' Fund. She lives with her family in SIlicon Valley.

Reviews for Taboo

[philipjhunt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A poetic insight into the spirit of an ancient worldview. Sometimes challenging, in a good way, for the whitefella reader.

[kaydern_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a copy of this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers.Taboo by Kim Scott follows a young woman, Tilly, as she grows into her chosen identity as a member of the Noongar of Western Austalia, as well as a fictionalized account of the generational trauma that followed a (less fictionalized) massacre of Noongar people dating to 1880. The narrative jumps between a gathering of Noongar including Tilly and her twin uncles which coincides with the opening of a "Peace Park" to memorialize the aforementioned massacre, and Tilly's personal struggles and traumas which led her to the gathering.I need to start by admitting this book took me a long time to finish. I picked it up and put it down after only a few pages at least three times in the first 100 pages. Part of this is likely due to some formatting issues I was having with my ereader where I couldn't increase the font size, but I can't discount this was a difficult narrative to contextualize. I was rebuffed by the prose style, which I found a bit dreamy and requiring some interpretation, and by a set of cultural norms, events, and slang I'm unfamiliar with. I would say I had to read a bit of this book before I understood how to read this book.All that being said, I'm glad I kept at it. I think that prose style is very effective in conveying Tilly's emotional state. I think the immersion in the cultural norms, events, and slang improved my own immersion in the story. I'm not particularly interested in revealing any plot, but regarding the story itself: there were some painful scenes of white people being racist that felt like they'd been pulled from the author's own life, and after then I couldn't help but feel the tension every time Tilly and her family interacted with white people. Additionally the trauma Tilly experiences is horrific, and I had really mixed feelings about how the rest of her family dealt with the perpetrators of those acts, but all of that that felt painfully real. This was a tough but vital read.

[cfraser_38 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this book interesting, insightful and eye opening. The language and content was difficult at times, but overall I found myself engaged with the story. I did find having two characters with the same name a bit confusing however, and did draw me out of the story on occasion.

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided in exchange for review by publishers Small Beer Press, via Library Thing.Kim Scott’s new novel, ‘Taboo’ draws on new energies emerging in Aboriginal storytelling, but it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.Part Magical Realism, part jigsaw puzzle, the story centers on Tilly, child of a white mother and native father, drawn into a group of Noongar relatives exploring ways to reclaim their heritage. Tilly is emblematic of the Australian Aboriginal population, created in the clash of two cultures. (The circumstances of her conception and birth are murky, but the relationship between her father and mother were almost certainly violent in one way or another.) From infancy, she was alternately abandoned, coddled, Anglicized, abused, rescued, and pushed into a journey to understand her Noongar heritage.At the time of ‘Taboo’, she joins her extended family who are gathering for a series of workshops exploring their culture and resurrecting the language. In addition, they will be attending the dedication of a “Peace Park” near the site of atrocities committed nearly two centuries earlier. Emotions are high; old wounds are re-opened, and it seems that for every step toward reconciliation, both sides take two steps backward into enmity.Scott uses a fractured, time-jumping style, and language larded with Australian slang and local references, which may make an already difficult read almost incomprehensible to the non-Australian reader. Conversations seem to go nowhere, and there is, inexplicably, a set of twins who share one name and take turns being the good twin, or the evil twin, as circumstances require. It’s all very confusing, particularly when drug- and alcohol-fused gatherings threaten to careen into generalized violence.‘Taboo’ may be an important read, but it’s not a particularly enjoyable one.