Re-writing the Colonial River: Fabienne Bayet-Charlton’s Watershed (2005) and Murray River narratives

The Murray River, which runs through South-eastern Australia, represents a watery zone of fluidity and flux which has produced multiple creation stories. Settler invasion resulted in violence at the river, and the extent of this genocide is only now being clearly documented. Indigenous author Fabienne Bayet-Charlton’s novel Watershed (2005) is set in “Sturtspond”, an irrigation settlement which was founded on the Murray. Protagonist Eve Marconi, a former champion swimmer whose son has drowned in the river, enters a spiral of alcoholism while her husband battles encroaching salinity on their farm. Water plays a major part in the novel – as river water, pool water and the desire for rain expressed by a naked rain dance. The centring of female experience and a subtle questioning of masculinist, industrialised approaches to water announces a reclamation from the dominant narratives that have pervasively shaped Murray River imaginaries in postcolonial Australia.