Wild Dingo Press, Australia 2025
Cover design Alex Ross
Revelation Beach is a deeply affecting historical, political and crime fiction set in the dark realities of the 1960s and 1970s in Indonesia and East Timor and the more or less present day of Australia. It is also a story of abandonment, truth and lies, and of love.
Main female character, gifted interpreter Eleanor Freeman comes under suspicion when her stepmother Ida dies in a suspicious fire in present-day Australia.
In the investigation into this fire, which is the skeleton of the present-day plot, both Ida’s and Eleanor’s pasts become ‘evidence’, but it is in the unravelling of truth and lies both personal and political that the resolution lies.
Both Ida’s and Eleanor’s lives are firmly rooted in Indonesia through their diplomatic, political and family connections. This was a time of immense political upheaval with regime changes from Sukarno to Suharto, of Australian government involvement in shady dealings, of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, of big corporate oil politics, of the infamous murder of the Balibo Five, of torture, of cover-ups and injustices left unanswered.
With this as the backdrop, the author presents the lives of the two strong but beleaguered women who carry the story. The manipulation and betrayal of Eleanor by several powerful men in the past flows into the present after Ida’s death. There are still a great many secrets to protect, not the least of them venal skulduggery and greed.
Money, power and the protection of dubious reputations are at the heart of the crimes uncovered in this story, both in its fictional context and in historical fact.
Eleanor’s estranged husband Stuart is but one example of this callous personal betrayal. Most of the politically/diplomatically influential men in her life are equally as duplicitous, self-interested and heartless.
One of the notable strengths of this book is the author’s capacity to take us deep into Eleanor’s thoughts as she struggles to understand what has happened to Ida, not just now in the death by fire, but during the more than 20 years during which she just dropped out of her life. Oft-abandoned and betrayed by those who should have told her the truth, Eleanor is a lost soul for much of this story.
The involvement of Clive, Eleanor’s godfather, in both historical and current-day wrongs is but a source of disillusionment and a spur for both Ida and Eleanor to uncover the truth – even from beyond the grave, a way is found to speak the truth that it was forbidden to tell.
In contrast, the doughty policewoman Clare proves her worth and her genuine care for Eleanor, both at a personal and professional level, working assiduously and in difficult environments to help prove Eleanor’s innocence.
The business of trauma is threaded delicately throughout this novel. Eleanor refers on a number of occasions to her post-graduate work on the Nuremberg trials. She cites the example of interpreter/translator Prince George Vassiltchikov, fluent in English, French, German and Russian. Like Eleanor, he stuttered in social conversation but, also like Eleanor, he was fluent when interpreting.
The task of Nuremberg interpreters to faithfully and simultaneously translate the words of the Nazis led many to the deepest trauma, but the Allies believed it was crucial for fairness. Here truth precedes justice and the parallels in Eleanor and Ida’s lives are cogent.
Eleanor has learnt through her research how the witnesses at the trials of the Nazi perpetrators of atrocities suffered terror from that act of witnessing and speaking: ‘Once you swallowed indifference, consumed cruelty and treachery, repeating it out loud di not force it from your heart.’
Again, the trauma of witnessing horrors which is so deftly mirrored in the lives of both Ida and Eleanor at different times in the history of Indonesia and East Timor. And again, the importance of airing truth for justice to be served.
Eleanor’s road to justice is paved with horrific truths on both the world stage and in her own experiences of betrayal and contempt – in the 70s, in the year 2000 and then in the revelations of truth a year later. It is also paved with love, and it is the revelation of the willing sacrifices of a decades-long, truly loving and courageous relationship, along with the hopeful spring of a new capacity to trust that are her salvation.
I cannot overstate how moving I found this book. The writing is beautiful though the content is mostly about ugly human behaviour and unspeakable acts of cruelty.
Susan Francis has personalised questions of responsibility and morality at a government level through the story of two individuals ill-used by both the ‘system’ and the people in their personal lives who should have nurtured and protected them.
The clear conclusion for me is that morality and decency are both personal and structural, and if we can do the first properly, honestly and simply, then we can surely do the other.
Lingering injustices surround the scenario of this novel and hence lingering injury to both individuals and nations. This is powerful literature.
Thank you to Wild Dingo Press for my review copy and to Susan for a heartfelt conversation about history and this superb book.