MY FRIENDS TAKE a breath, lean across the table and assume the tone of Richard Dawkins explaining dinosaurs to intelligently designed Christians. They believe that in my promotion of Aboriginal achievement I’m simply being loyal to family or wanting to take a belligerent stance on our country’s identity and history.

Houses, crops, agriculture, sewing! Their frustration is benign, their love for me is no less, but they think I’ve gone too far this time. Writers are supposed to be mad and they are to be coddled for it like a warped aunty. They are also supposed to be heretical but they are not supposed to defy everything we were taught about Aborigines. They must not be encouraged to refute the national story.