Where did the ideas come from for Gracey?
After Dougy, I didn’t intend to keep the story going. However, I found myself thinking about Raymond. At that time, an inquiry was being held into why so many aboriginal men killed themselves in gaol. I felt I could guess part of the answer. For young black kids in their late teens and early twenties, there were few opportunities – for jobs, for esteem in the community, for access to the things that most young men want such as a car, a bit of money in the pocket, a bit of excitement. This leads into a cycle of helplessness and then hopelessness, often getting them into trouble with the law for mainly petty offences. I thought Raymond might go the same way but his story would have been too depressing on its own. Gracey had gone off to a boarding school and started to wonder whether she would lose her identity. The idea for the bones must have come when I was watching an excavator at work. I had read about murderers burying their victims in the back yard and the bones being discovered af
