Q&A with Tracey Lien
To be read after finishing the book
Some readers may remember news reports from the mid to late 90s reporting on the heroin epidemic in Sydney. This was also around the same time that Pauline Hanson delivered her maiden speech to Parliament with the infamous line ‘I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians.’ Why did you want to write about this time in Australia’s history?
My reasons for setting All That’s Left Unsaid in 1996 are twofold. First, 1996 in Cabramatta was a moment steeped in tension – it was the height of the heroin epidemic, it was when Cabramatta frequently made the headlines for the wrong reasons, and for a lot of families it was a time of crisis. All these factors lent themselves to a high-stakes and high-friction setting for a murder mystery. Second, 1996 was the year Pauline Hanson gave her maiden speech to parliament, and it was the first time in my own memory in which I saw an elected official – a figure of authority holding a position that commanded respect – express a racist and hurtful sentiment with impunity. I found it emblematic of a problem I wanted to explore in the novel: that the actions that diminish us (both perpetrators and victims) are often seen as above board, accepted, or excused.
The power of this book is that it uses one event, the murder of Ky’s brother Denny Tran, to give the reader a much wider view on a community and how cultural beliefs play a part in the inner workings and processing of trauma. How comfortable were you writing about this considering this is a world you grew up in?
I had to do a lot of research. Although I grew up in the Cabramatta area and still consider it home, I wasn’t exposed to many of the situations I rendered in the novel. And so, initially, I was deeply uncomfortable writing about Cabramatta because I was filled with uncertainty. How much was my own experience representative of other people’s experiences? If some people had it worse than me, how did that look? For those who had it better than me, what were their lives like? To what extent was something a cultural practice versus a quirky thing I’d seen or heard? That’s one of the hardest parts of writing fiction – I’m making things up, but I also want it to feel real. It’s a tricky line to walk!
I knew early on that I wanted to challenge the idea that any community can be a monolith.
Many of the characters in the book came to Australia from war-torn countries experiencing conflict that endangered their lives. The book addresses the burden migrants are forced to carry with the expectations from the culture they were born into and the one they have adopted. Do you think this burden has changed for Asian Australians over 25 years on from the time period captured in All That’s Left Unsaid?
Much of the distress my characters experience is a result of an Australian dream that wasn’t extended to them. Think about it: kids in school are told that they’re as Aussie as they come, that they belong, that Australia values multiculturalism. The identity we export around the world is that of mateship and giving everyone a fair go. We’re laid back and kind, we’re prosperous and generous, we’re not snobs about anything. And, sometimes, this is true! But, sometimes, it isn’t. This offering that is promised to all Australians is not usually extended to people of colour. And for the characters of my novel, many of whom were born in or grew up in Australia, this realisation is deeply disappointing because they don’t have another home; this is it.
Has this changed for Asian Australians since 1996? Well, I can’t speak on behalf of the millions of Asian people living in Australia. But I will say this, the reason I chose to highlight some of the nation’s shortcomings in my novel is because I believe it has the capacity to be self-reflective and improve and be a true home for anyone who calls it home. I’m critical because I care.
The book isn’t always told from Ky’s perspective and is often told from the viewpoint of the various witnesses who were at the restaurant the night that Denny died. This reads seamlessly and never jars with the reader, even when the voices are very different. How important was each character telling their own story to you?
I knew early on that I wanted to challenge the idea that any community can be a monolith. We often hear of Asian Australians or rural white farmers or asylum seekers spoken of as if they share a hive mind, when this is far from the case. And so, in All That’s Left Unsaid, I wanted to show just how different the members of a community can be. Here is a group of people who all live in the same place, speak the same language, share a similar background, witnessed the same murder, and chose to not speak to the police … and yet, their reasons for their decisions are very different. Flora is nothing like Lulu who is nothing like Eddie who is nothing like Jimmy Carter. Maybe if we can see that these characters are just like everyone else – just as stubborn and funny and goofy and flawed and smart and capable of failure – it’ll be harder for us to paint entire communities with broad strokes.
Apart from uncovering the mystery of Denny’s death, All That’s Left Unsaid is a bigger story about a country trying to find its identity, something which, more than 25 years later, we’re still trying to do. Did that deeper level in the story come easily to you? How hard was it to get the balance between a page-turning mystery and a very honest portrayal of a racist chapter in Australia’s history?
I’m not sure that chapter has closed. When we consider the ways in which asylum seekers are maligned, how xenophobia is weaponised in Australian politics, the homogeneity of the media and entertainment landscape, the continued marginalisation of Indigenous Australians, or the fact that Pauline Hanson is still a senator … I don’t think it’s controversial to say that our nation is a work in progress.
One of the challenging parts of writing this novel was making sure that, even though I was critical of Australia’s racist history, it was coming from a place of love. I often asked myself, ‘If someone is reading this for the first time, does my love for my home come through? Even though I’m highlighting these deeply disturbing and disappointing elements of Australia, is it clear that I’m in no way writing off the country, and I am in fact expressing my belief that Australians have what it takes to make this a truly fair and equitable nation.’ The scary thing to me is that I have no control over how this novel is received, or how people choose to interpret it. But that’s the chance I’m taking.
Those deeper elements of the novel came easily to me because I wrote what I felt to be truthful – even though the characters and events are fictional, the emotional components of the story are real to me. In terms of incorporating these heavier themes into a page-turner, I was adamant from the beginning that I wanted this to be an entertaining read, so I learned a lot from the works of novelists such as Jane Harper, Liane Moriarty, and Trent Dalton on ways to present a mystery and propel a reader along, no matter how tough the subject.
