Jerath Head

Perhaps media saturation is making me impatient, irrational – turning an unknown object into a widespread conspiracy. There is always literary non-fiction, literary journalism. Whatever the case, I have less time for commentary, for the assertion of opinion and the confirming of priors, for attempts to circumscribe socio-cultural and political realities. Less time for my own knee-jerk tendencies towards these. At times it all feels so close, so heavy, when there is so much space to look around.

Presser draws draw strands together—historical, cultural, geographical, familial—to create something living, to prevent past atrocities from crystallising and slipping into memory as isolated events that don’t continue to effect the present. The Book of Dirt is both a loving, honest portrayal of lives that would have been erased, and an incorporation of the broader lessons of their experience into contemporary mythology. It keeps the discussion about trauma, memory, and intergenerational acts of transfer alive for those generations that follow, that risk forgetting. It is a potent achievement for a debut novel.