Making Shadows

Tony McHugh

$31.95

Paperback

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English

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18 February 2024

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Australian Fiction

Making Shadows spans the period from the fall of Singapore in World War 2 to the Welcome Home Parade for Vietnam veterans in 1987. It is a story about what appear to be opposites - life and death, light and shadow, war and peace - when, in fact, they are the same.

Joe is a National Service conscript. Assigned to his four-man tent at Nui Dat base, he is scrutinised by three regulars of the 1st Australian Task Force in Vietnam. Once they learn he has a degree in psychology, he is nicknamed Shrink.

The story follows the diggers through their time in Vietnam, and their subsequent personal battles in the aftermath of the war - PTSD, drug use and organised crime, murder and revenge, heartache and good fortune.

As the story proceeds, we learn about Frank, Joe's father, and his time as a Japanese POW. We follow Joe's adopted First Nations sister, Dot, as she weaves her way through the family's post-war traumas and achievements, as well as her own path through racial prejudice to professional and personal fulfilment. What she and Joe don't know is that they share the same biological father, a secret withheld by Frank and their grandmother Winn.

By: Tony McHugh
Imprint: Not Avail
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 19mm
Weight: 372g
ISBN: 9780646892924
ISBN 10: 0646892924
Pages: 274
Publication Date: 18 February 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

I have an MLitt degree in visual art and culture, and a PhD in cultural semiotics. I also have a dental degree and specialist qualifications in periodontics and oral plastic surgery. My background as an honorary visiting specialist clinician at Sydney Dental Hospital has provided years of experience treating First Nations people and war veterans. I have also worked as a volunteer at Redfern Community Centre, documenting indigenous children's spoken stories generated from photographic images taken by themselves and their friends. I have published in medical sociology, cultural theory, fine art photography, dental science, and adult fiction. For the last six years I have worked as a freelance academic editor for several major European conferences, chiefly for those speakers whose first language is not English. I am an Australian citizen, and now live in Sydney.