What we're reading: Mayo & Sacco
Each week our wonderful staff share the books and music that they've been enjoying.
Katey Bellew is reading Dear Son by Thomas Mayo
This incredibly moving collection features twelve letters by Indigenous men addressed to their sons and fathers. What results is a desperately brave and tender demonstration of decolonising masculinity. The Northern Territory Intervention, and the racist dialogue surrounding it, is raised by several of the men as having a particularly harmful impact on their relationships and sense of self. While the men allow themselves to reflect on difficult topics, the book's creation so clearly stems from a place of love. Hurt and grief too, but love first. I'm in awe of the honesty and generosity displayed in each and every one of these letters. This is my favourite read of the year so far.
Joe Murray is reading Palestine by Joe Sacco
During difficult and devastating times like these, I often struggle to know what I should do, or even can do, but I always know one thing that is never a bad idea and that's reading, broadening my understanding one page at a time. In that interest I've been reading Joe Sacco's Palestine, a masterwork of comics journalism that details Sacco's experiences immersing himself in occupied Palestine in 1992. He tells the stories of those he meets with an emotive earnestness whilst never overlooking his own position as a detached witness searching for drama. It's an incredibly timely look into the long and turbid history of the region, with a heartbreakingly prescient foreword, and a magnificent display of the comics medium in its own right.
