Get a feel for what's inside!
Flick through the pages and get a feel for the writing style, and how accessible it is for the 'ordinary' person.
About the Author's writing style
Julie Jones doesn't waste the reader's time with unnecessary description. When she talks about CJ's Dad driving a Holden, she doesn't waste our time telling us what sort of Holden it is (EJ, FJ, Kingswood, Premier etc) - that's irrelevant. She doesn't even bother us with the colour. All we know is that it doesn't have roof racks - because that's all we need to know. And that it's a Holden - because Samuel's a Holden man, not a Ford man, and that's all we need to know about Samuel and his relationship with his car.
As such, the story moves along at a rollicking pace - when you've finished, you wonder how so much story could be packed into such a small book (about 200 pages, and 40,000 words). And that's the answer - it's all story, no padding.
The beauty of that is that the reader can hang their own story and visuals on the framework. When we hear about CJ's house in the growing suburbs of Sydney, some of us might visualise a red brick house, others a little fibro place, and others a Permalum place with a picket fence. It's the reader's story as much as CJ's.
This is a book for anyone who has been touched by trauma - especially the trauma that others haven't experienced, such as returning from war, being in a bank hold up or hostage situation, or being in a plane crash. The sort of trauma that other's can't relate to, leaving us alone with no commonality of experience.
If you feel like you must have run over a Chinaman in a past life, then this is the book for you!
And if you’re a health professional working with traumatised people, this is a resource which can help you help them. As you would well know, it’s sometimes hard for people to face their own issues, but using this book as a safe middle ground can help you open discussion with them. Talk with your patients and clients about CJ’s life - why does she feel like that, why did she react that way? Slowly your patients will be able to recognise themselves in the mirror that is CJ, and once they do that, the healing really can begin.
Running Over A Chinaman, Julie (Thredgold) Jones, ISBN 978-0-9806704-0-0 (paperback).
site by 