Gaining insight into the love stories within history amongst the harsh political climates of the time.
G.S. Johnston’s historical fiction novel Sweet Bitter Cane explores the injustice experienced between two World Wars. The novel delivers a love story with raw emotion allowing an audience to reflect on their own heritage. Sweet Bitter Cane is set in the small town of Babinda in Far North Queensland amongst the sugar cane farming during the early to mid-twentieth century. Woven within the narrative is the political climate during this time that showed signs of challenging the concept of White Australia. The story demonstrates how many cultures can find their way on this land, making Australia what it is today. But it is the heart of the story about the two protagonists Amelia and Italo that moves the reader by creating an understanding of why we have never left these stories behind. Greg publishes under G.S. Johnston and I met with Greg to discuss the research behind Sweet Bitter Cane along with the era the novel explores.
What sparked the idea for the novel was the first point of our conversation. Greg discussed his travels in Italy, and how the landmarks in Naples helped develop the narrative. However, he has not been to the north of Italy, where the protagonist Amelia came from. Greg has learned some of the Italian language and said, ‘I felt I had a kind of understanding of Italian people, so it made it easier to become the character [Amelia].’ Furthermore, Greg lives in ‘one o[[[[[old Italian ghettos,’ in Sydney where many people populated the area after the war. He can’t explain what attracted the Italians to this area, ‘but only that the houses have quite large gardens’ where the Italians could cultivate their gardens ‘and still live relatively close to the city.’ A neighbour of Greg’s invited him over after a conversation about being a writer. Gloria, the neighbour, brought out a folder with content about another family member located in the archives. The information was about Gloria’s parents who migrated to Australia between World War I and World War II. Greg added, ‘She kept saying to me they were innocent, they were innocent, my ears pricked up and I thought what do you know?’ Greg said, ‘There were certain times in our discussion she retreated and I thought there are secrets here…I kept saying to her…there’s something that kind of happened before the war broke out.’ In the end, ‘The second part of the novel is probably based more factually on her parent’s story.’ He explained to Gloria how he would need to creatively make up the part before the Second World War broke out and said, ‘She kind of allowed me to do that.’
Further research was drawn from a particular book Greg found about the Italian migrants who worked in the cane fields. He discussed the White Australia policy and how ‘the Kanaka people, who had been brought from the islands, were sent back because they were not wanted anymore.’ Whereas the Italians were brought over ‘because they were considered to be almost white and used to working in hot climates, which wasn’t really true. Most of the people who came were from the north, which is quite cold.’
Greg explained how moments of finding material that works with your writing project are often a gift. For Sweet Bitter Cane, this included manuscripts, self-published books, and archived resources. He added, ‘You can find people who have lived through these times, even if they didn’t live through the story I’m writing.’ Greg said, ‘Local newspapers like the Cairns Post that were published at that time…provided the support material for the whole thing really.’ When a writer has found something they are interested in ‘then you have your antennas up, these stories just start to come to you.’ Greg was ‘reading history books [and] books on fascism…trying to understand what it represented at the time rather than what it represented in retrospect.’ He explained how finding resources that were published at the time but perhaps we now consider uncomfortable is something he strives to do during the research process.
When exploring the soldiers who returned from war, Greg said, ‘I found again these stories of just people who had come back and tried to take what I thought [was] needed.’ In the context of the character Fergus who fought in World War I and who Amelia meets early during her journey in Australia, Greg explained how he had to provide a contrast to the other characters, ‘he had to be different’ with an Irish descent.
Creating the characters in Sweet Bitter Cane involved a crafting process. Greg said, the character Amelia, ‘came in increments.’ He added, ‘It’s not like these characters arrive on your desk, fully formed.’ Therefore, ‘I started with the fact that the women were brought to Australia as these proxy brides.’ This always intrigued Greg and how brave the women were to marry men from the other side of the world who they had never met. He added, ‘Immigration has always intrigued me as well. To leave your country is a very hard thing to do.’ The reader experiences Amelia’s first impressions of her new home when she arrives in Far North Queensland:
‘This strange house, so much space it was like the outdoors, so many holes it was the outdoors. Perhaps if she unpacked her things it would at least begin to feel like home.’
But Greg went further with Amelia’s story and, ‘started thinking about a woman in a love triangle, there had to be some involvement with another man, which then created a whole heap of tensions.’ These tensions created further subplots in the novel and highlighted how the narrative also draws on Fergus’ story.
To connect Sweet Bitter Cane with today, Greg said, ‘There are so many resonances in their stories with things that are happening now.’ He added, ‘With historical fiction, I always try to think of how does this relate to now?’ For example, ‘That love, or when it becomes love rather, over time can endure a lot.’ Also, ‘As has happened in this country for the last fifteen to twenty years, migrants were [bearing] the brunt of everything…and I felt that was just so unfair, in terms of what has been provided through immigration in this country.’ He discussed how the same arguments are just being repeated ‘against a different group of people.’ Greg mentioned in his research he came across a photograph of a store in Babinda, the village the novel is set in. The store had ‘an awning of a draper shop [with]…the name Mellick on it, which is a Lebanese name.’ On the high Victorian building where the draper shop was located, there was an Italian flag in front of it. When Greg saw this photograph he thought, ‘That’s Australia. That’s what Australia really is, this amalgam of all these different cultures.’
Greg has written three novels since Sweet Bitter Cane, which he is considering self-publishing. The first novel he discussed is set in Italy before the Second World War, ‘in a little village in Tuscany.’ Greg said, ‘Twenty-five years ago, I bought an Italian cookbook which I think was called The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews…[and] the novel was based around that cookbook.’ The second book is ‘a kitchen sink drama set in Sydney in the present day.’ The third book is set in the early nineties of Sydney and ‘looks at the worst years of the HIV epidemic, between 1993 and 1996…It deals with that period coming into the hype of the arrival of effective therapy.’ Drawing on his current projects and Sweet Bitter Cane, it is evident that Greg brings history to life. But also the challenges faced at the time within different settings and contexts and how they resonate with an audience today.
In one form or another, Johnston has always written, at first composing music and lyrics. After completing a degree in pharmacy, a year in Italy re-ignited his passion for writing and he completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature. Feeling the need for a broader canvas, he started writing short stories and novels.
He is treasurer of the Historical Novel Society Australasia. He hosts the podcast, Imagining the Past with interviews with such luminary authors as Geraldine Brooks, Tom Keneally, Pip Williams and Jock Serong. He is on the committee for the ARA Historical Novel Prize.