A Tear in the Soul

by Amanda Webster

A foreigner’s criticism provides the impetus for Amanda Webster to embark on a long-intended search for two former school friends – Aboriginal kids from the Kurrawang Mission near where she grew up in Kalgoorlie. As a child, Webster supposed Mission kids were well-cared for orphans, however growing awareness forced her to think otherwise. Over the years her questions accumulated: were her friends members of the Stolen Generations? What was life at Kurrawang really like? What are her responsibilities as a non-Indigenous Australian whose family’s privilege was built on stolen land? For an institution that existed for over two decades, Webster finds that Kurrawang was strangely undocumented. Nor can she find any trace of her former friends, including a young Aboriginal girl who went on a beach holiday with Amanda’s family. Then in 2012, Webster meets Gregory Ugle, an older brother of her former friend Tony. After a four-decade absence, Webster returns to her hometown with Ugle to reconnect with her former friends, and to piece together Kurrawang’s story through oral histories and local newspaper archives. Over several trips, a sometimes uneasy tension emerges with Ugle as both he and Webster inch towards a fragile reconciliation.

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Meg Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a must read book for a understanding of the Stolen Generation. Written with great sensitivity and understanding.

[Ana Spagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Tear in the Soul is a beautifully written memoir about re-connection with the past—a beautifully written memoir, gut-honest and tender, yes—but that’s not what makes it stand out: it’s the way this book makes connections across culture, injustice, and heartache. Amanda Webster not only reconnects with the aboriginal kids she knew and loved as a child in Western Australia, she opens her heart and her life and her book to them, so that it’s not so much her story as theirs, all of theirs. This is a stunning book, an important book, and a true gift in a troubled world.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amanda puts into words the self-questioning of many younger members of white Australia. Definitely a must read.

[Natalie S · Rating 4 out of 5]

For years Amanda Webster had an idealistic view of the past. The smart, sixth-Generation Australian, who has published books about autism and whose father and grandfather were respected doctors, had assumed that everyone – including her Indigenous school friends – had enjoyed a comfortable upbringing that was similar to the her own.

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[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sincere and personal exploration of systemic cultural genocide in Australia.