Too Much Lip

A Novel

By: Melissa Lucashenko

Narrated by: Tamala Shelton

A gritty and darkly hilarious novel quaking with life—winner of Australia’s Miles Franklin Award—that follows a queer, First Nations Australian woman as she returns home to face her family and protect the land of their ancestors.

Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent her adulthood avoiding two things: her hometown and prison. A tough, generous, reckless woman accused of having too much lip, Kerry uses anger to fight the avalanche of bullshit the world spews. But now her Pop is dying and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley for one last visit.

Kerry plans to spend twenty-four hours, tops, across the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of latching on to people—not to mention her chaotic family and the threat of a proposal to develop a prison on Granny Ava’s Island, the family’s spiritual home. On top of that, love may have found Kerry again when a good-looking white fella appears out of nowhere with eyes only for her.

As the fight mounts to stop the development, old wounds open. Surrounded by the ghosts of their Elders and the memories of their ancestors, the Salters are driven by the deep need to make peace with their past while scrabbling to make sense of their present. Kerry just hopes they can come together in time to preserve Granny Ava’s legacy and save their ancestral land.

Should be required whitefella reading

This story captures eloquently the trauma, anger and resilience of the Aboriginal Australians I have had the privilege to know. It resonates in so many ways with some of the histories I've heard. There's still so much learning, reconciliation, and healing that needs to happen. The narration is perfect, too. I especially loved the way the narrator captured Pretty Mary. Her intonation, pitch and irreverence sounded exactly like the female elders I've talked to. It's a great story, well told.

you want to read this

loved it. read this. recommend this 100 fold. real
gritty. inspiring. also, the tarot doesn't lie.

One of the best narrations I’ve heard

This book has an engrossing story line and super narration.
I found the audio so compelling and such a plus for this particular story.
Highly recommend this book.

Gritty? Yes. Darkly hilarious? No.

Most of the summary was accurate, except for the claim of dark hilarity. Dark, sarcastic wisecracks never delivered laughs. Instead, this was a generational drama about the jagged ties binding Kerry to her aboriginal family. Old and new trauma are dealt with amidst the threat of losing ancestral lands to a white developer. There’s a lot of cussing, and several plot lines involving racism, sexism and both domestic and sexual violence that could be triggering. The narration was outstanding, even if the accents and unfamiliar local lingo sometimes made things hard to follow. Ultimately an engrossing, but also grim, Australian tale.