23/7/2008.

The publicity surrounding Black Jack Anderson is certainly hotting up.

There have now been two full-length articles (Sunday Times, Community Newspapers), one review ( by Graeme Blundell in The Weekend Australian: Review), see below, and Elaine has now done two radio interviews (ABC radio with Geraldine Mellet and 6PR with Steve Gordon).

 

Black Jack Anderson

By Elaine Forrestal

Penguin, 246pp, $19.95

AWARD-WINNING West Australian writer of novels for children Elaine Forrestal has turned in a gorgeous historical biography, part folktale and part true-crime story.

 Black Jack Anderson, a 2m-tall African-American who terrorised the west's coastal waters in the 1820s and '30s, was Australia's most charismatic pirate. Forrestal tells his story simply and beguilingly, along with that of those who surrounded him, especially his English mistress, Dorothy Newell, and the scholarly William Church. Forrestal, caught up in bloody events and places, is a lovely writer who never loses her literary way.

The Australian

follow links to other reviews in pdf format

Mandurah Coastal Times review

Sunday Times

8th September, 2008

‘Forrestal has imbued this little known bit of Australian history, despite sparce official records, with humanity, drama and romance.

Anderson was fearsome but quite a charmer, a man of honour who won the heart of a shipwrecked lass. It’s an excellent book with an amazing story of survival against the odds.’

                                                Frank Walker, Sun Herald (Sydney)

 

‘Pirates didn’t just ply their deadly trade in the Caribbean. West Australian author Elaine Forrestal uncovers Australia’s most famous buccaneer, Black Jack Anderson, who terrorised the west coast during the 1820s and 1830s from his base on a remote island.’

                                                Herald Sun (Melbourne)

 

‘Taken from the carefully kept records of a scholar who was with Anderson on his decade long rampage, this book is a fascinating account of a part of Australian history obscured by Captain Cook and Ned Kelly.

                                                Marcus Mendola, South Coast Register (NSW)