SHORTLISTED FOR THE READINGS NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION PRIZE 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK DESIGN AWARDS 2025 BEST DESIGNED LITERARY FICTION/POETRY COVER
Five years after violence erupted between young migrants and local police in Melbourne's inner west, a police-led trip to hike the Kokoda Trail seeks to rebuild trust. But fresh allegations of racial profiling have the community on a knife edge.
For wannabe rapper Ali, pride is hard to come by in the commission towers, where friends fill the gaps left by a family secret.
Classmate Tyler's anger - at his broken home, and a world that denies his dreams - is close to ignition.
With her life in disarray, young and idealistic teacher Anna defies a school system that's failing her students.
And Paul, a cop new to the beat, quickly realises it'll take more than community policing to fix relations with local youth.
From the vial-studded stairs of the inner-city high-rises to the mud-sucking jungle of Kokoda, No Church in the Wild is a fierce interrogation of contemporary Australian society and the prejudices that still underpin it.
Praise for No Church in the Wild
'Murray Middleton deftly avoids the landmines in his propulsive new novel. He takes on a story whose hoary origins hark back to Blackboard Jungle, and which has for too long been mired in journalistic cliché and in hand-wringing sentimentality, and he makes it fresh, troubling and compelling. The structure is cinematic, but the real strength is in the operatic assuredness of the writing. The chorus of voices have real bite, real sting and real tenderness and truth. It sounds like real life.' CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS
'I don't know if Murray Middleton is the bravest writer in Australia or the stupidest. What I do know is that No Church in the Wild is amazing; a novel of wisdom and assurance and audacity. The fact that this book exists is a triumph. The fact that it works - and that it's so good - is a miracle.' MILES ALLINSON
'A fierce, urgent, necessary book.' JAMES BRADLEY
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 26, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781761561368
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781761561368
- File size: 3092 KB
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Accessibility
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Ways Of Reading
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Conformance
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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February 13, 2024
Stereotypes and bad press about the commission towers of Melbourne’s inner west are easy to come by, but Vogel winner Murray Middleton’s deeply researched and complex portrayal of this community resists such sensationalism. No Church in the Wild introduces characters living and working in the inner west through four main vantage points: Ali and Tyler, students at a local high school; Anna, an idealistic teacher; and Paul, a cop new to the beat. They are all training for the Kokoda Track as a joint community and police trip to counter ‘long-term disengagement with local youth’. More cynically, it is a PR exercise to paper over the civil lawsuit the district police are facing for misconduct and harassment. Middleton’s chops as a short story writer are on display in his debut long-form fiction work, as he deftly layers vignettes like overlapping tags on a brick wall. He approaches his subjects with dignity and compassion, no doubt the result of his extensive interviews and experience working as a teacher in the area himself. So many storylines can become unwieldy at times, but Middleton uses volume to demonstrate how individuals get caught up in the system and are homogenised by circumstance. The novel grapples with gentrification, ghettoisation, drugs, race, religion, politics, class, white saviourism, and violence without becoming didactic, while rapid-fire segments and unornamented language keep the pages turning. Recommended for readers who loved Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke or Tracey Lien’s All That's Left Unsaid.
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