She also writes often about nature, painting landscapes of brutal, untamed beauty reminiscent of Annie Proulx. Given how universal Brooks’s books are, why then does she remain so under-appreciated outside of Australia? In her fiction, she returns most frequently to the beauty and blood found in religion, exploring faiths in a quiet, reverent voice that recalls Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. As a fan, it is nice to see a self-described “feminist tree-hugging pinko” officially recognised for her body of work.
It’s an apt description: whether the setting is the rocky American wilderness or pre-biblical Israel, all Brooks’s books have an underlying fascination with the wider world, frequent references to multiculturalism and mutual understanding, and warnings against the corrosiveness of class prejudice – all wonderfully Australian roots. The American-Australian author was awarded the Order of Australia on Tuesday, to mark her “essentially Australian” contributions to writing, as she called them in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald.
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