AustLit

'Lynette Russell, in her essay agrees the 'Grenville's novels can be regarded as part of a process of wider reconciliation. Russell's own lack of Aboriginal language and attempts to learn it have led her to identity strongly with the characters in The Lieutenant and, in her essay on the novel, she argues for a reading that explores the role of language in mediating the friendship between black and white Australia. For, she suggests, the stories from the past which novelists like Grenville have uncovered that deal with both that deal with both positive and negative engagements between settler and Indigenous peoples are 'stories that belong to both" groups, the telling and retelling of which "ought to be seen as an exercise in reconciliation."' ( Kossew, 'Introduction', xx)