Australian Gospel - Lech Blaine - Book Cover Image

Australian Gospel: A Family Saga

Review by Stacey O’Carroll

Author: Lech Blaine

Publisher: Black. Inc

RRP: $36.99

Release Date: Out Now

 

“Michael Shelley kidnapped Elijah on a sunlit Monday afternoon.”

 

There is a well-known saying that truth is stranger than fiction. In the case of Lech Blaine’s creative non-fiction, Australian Gospel: A Family Saga, this sentiment rings at an ear-piercing cicada-chorus level. Blaine, the Australian author of the memoir Car Crash, writes a poignant, loving and heartbreaking true story about his family and the challenges they faced trying to stay safe and together.

 

“The Shelleys would get no direct contact with Steven and John until they turned eighteen. Susan warned Lenore that Michael and Mary would inevitably attempt to find them. The Blaines would need to be silent voters and remain unlisted in the White Pages.

 

Australian Gospel: A Family Saga is the true story of the Blaine and Shelley families. Blaine’s siblings were fostered by his working-class parents, Lenore and Tom Blaine. Three of the Blaine siblings were removed from Christian fanatics, Michael and Mary Shelley, by child services for neglect. At the start of the book, we are introduced to a young, intelligent and charismatic Michael before he begins his nomadic and extreme life with Mary. As the Blaine family try to give the children a safe, happy and loving environment and protect them from their biological parents, the Shelleys increase their bizarre, scary and frantic attempts to track their children down and kidnap them. The Shelleys spend years in and out of jail and psychiatric institutions and inflicting increasingly threatening and alarming behaviour on government staff and kind strangers. Throughout the years, there are many absurd run-ins with the Shelleys, but also lots of loving and hilarious moments for the Blaine family.

 

“Blood runs thicker than water, thought Mick. If the Shelleys kidnapped him, what was stopping them from kidnapping Jason?”

 

Trying to put into words how jaw-dropping the things Michael and Mary Shelley did is like trying to bowl a cricket ball with butter on your hands. From the first page of Lech Blaine’s Australian Gospel: A Family Saga, the reader is completely hooked. There are moments where the reader may need to remind themselves that the people and events are real and not a work of fiction. Blaine’s excellent storytelling brings these true events to life for the reader, and the love and respect he has for his family dances off the page. His use of fiction techniques helps to place the reader in the centre of the action and evoke a spectrum of feelings for each of the characters. It is easy to equally despise Mary and feel dreadfully sorry for this woman, thanks to Blaine’s balanced approach.

 

“Hannah knew that she was fostered. But she wasn’t bothered by the circumstances of her birth. It was just a funny bit of trivia. Anyway, she talked like a Blaine. She dressed like a Blaine. She played sport like a Blaine.”

 

Australian Gospel: A Family Saga is packed with thorough research, journal entries, recollections and data from official documents. Blaine’s considered and in-depth research brings the story from family memories to a well-rounded and captivating text that attempts to show possible reasons for some of the behaviour and incidents. The inclusion of excepts from Michael Shelley’s journal provides a deeper perspective on the inner thoughts of a controlling and disturbed man. In counter to these are the, at times heartbreaking, excepts from the meticulous journals of Lenore Blaine. A woman whose love for all her children knows no bounds and who helped create new lives for her foster children.

 

“Dad handed the ball to Hannah, as a way to level the playing field. Her left-hand medium pace hit my middle stump. I refused to leave the crease. She bowled a hat-trick against me. I threw the bat over the fence.”

 

Lech Blaine’s exceptional and entertaining Australian Gospel: A Family Saga is a must-read. Blaine’s book will tear your heart out and piece it back together with its love letter to his strong and caring family.


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