Kindred: A Cradle Mountain Love Story by Kate Legge
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm always intrigued by the decision writers must make when they choose to tell history. Too much factual information and it reads like a tax return, too much narrative intervention and it loses credibility. And then there's the decision about which history - which facts and what version? Another dead-white-male tale of political domination or something more social and intimate and perhaps less academically respectable?

In this account, I think Legge treads the right path for her subject. This is a tale of both the political history of a very significant part of the Australian landscape (literarily and figuratively) and the intimate relationships that gave the project vitality. Kindred is filled with the facts and figures that show just how important the history of Cradle Mountain National Park is to the history of Australia but it is also threaded with the relationship and character of the two imposing figures who were so integral to making the project come to fruition.

The scientific and political history is important, but human endeavour becomes truly meaningful when we can see the passion behind the achievements. Legge's history brings the wonder and beauty of Cradle Mountain to life through her telling of the tale of two people who knew and loved it intimately.

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