1. Alienation
2. Family
3. Graphic novels
4. Grief
5. Guilt
6. Humanity
7. Multimodal narratives
8. Music
9. Narrative techniques
10. Racism
11. Stolen Generations
12. Trauma

‘Requiem for a Beast’ is an epic 96-page multimodal work about family, grief, guilt, intergenerational trauma, and the Stolen Generations. It is accompanied by a CD containing orchestral music and Aboriginal songs, both traditional and composed by Matt Ottley and Shayne Gordon. Ottley (in an interview with Joy Lawn) describes why he used a mix of Bundjalung and Latin in the work:

‘I set the consecutive parts, or sections of the book in the form of the Requiem from the Catholic church’s liturgy. This is because at heart the original Requiem is about the grieving process, about resolution and finding peace. I thought this was appropriate given the story of the Stolen Generations coupled with the theme of a dysfunctional masculine culture underlying much of contemporary Australian society. The Aboriginal stories contain themes that either work in tandem with those of the Latin text, or work thematically in an ironic way. Either way, they are both expressing deeper threads of connectivity that runs through all of humanity.’

The textual story shifts between a narrator’s third-person point-of-view; a first-person account by a White boy; and italicised first-person passages from an Aboriginal Elder. The third-person narrative tells the story of a boy who goes to the outback to work as a stockman, like his father before him. In the course of his work, the boy meets the beast, a wild bull he admires for its grace, yet feels compelled to hunt and slay.

The book opens with expansive realist oil paintings of clouds building up over grasslands. Next is a stark white spread, a text-only voyage into the dreamscape of the White boy, following a bull to a small desert schoolhouse, where a young Aboriginal boy writes at a desk. These pages are formatted like a graphic novel, with multiple panels and coloured pencil illustrations building to a frenetic pace as the dream turns nightmare, with a mythological beast coming for the young boy.

The rest of the book continues in this vein, moving through vivid comic panel scenes and prose. It shifts between the present and the past, and between epic legend and internal psyche. Nonfiction sections about the minotaur are interspersed with memories of a shameful episode from his father’s past. Ultimately, the three narrative threads entwine as the White boy must decide about truth and atonement for his father’s crime.

Controversially, it won the CBCA Picture Book of the Year in 2008. Detractors objected to explicit language and its format as a graphic novel, not a picture book. There is little reported discussion about the graphic violence and portrayal of politically sensitive topics such as attempted suicide by overdose, the Stolen Generations, and colonial dispossession.

1. Paperbark Words blog 1 Mar 2022 interview with Matt Ottley by Joy Lawn https://paperbarkwords.blog/2022/03/01/the-tree-of-ecstasy-and-unbearable-sadness/
2. Matt Ottley’s website ‘The Sound of Picture Books Inspiration’, exploring Ottley’s multimodal work, on his website https://mattottley.com/music/the-sound-of-picture-books/
3. Matt Ottley’s website offers free resource notes (except for ‘Requiem for a Beast’ - $25) for many of his books https://mattottley.com/product-category/resource-notes/
4. Trevor Cairney Blogspot, discusses the book and its controversial choice as CBCA Picture Book of the Year in 2008 http://trevorcairney.blogspot.com/2008/08/requiem-for-beast-review.html
5. QUT ePrints ‘Requiem for a Beast: A case study in controversy’ by Erica Hateley, 2014. Paper delivered at the Asian Conference on Literature & Librarianship 2014, Official Conference Proceedings 2014 https://eprints.qut.edu.au/72924/19/72924%28pub%29.pdf
6. Australian Curriculum includes ‘Requiem for a Beats’ as a sample multimodal fiction text for the Australian curriculum as an example for the study of ‘Essential English’ https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/senior-secondary-curriculum/english/essential-english/texts/
7. Australians Together ‘Discover and learn through the Australians Together Learning Framework; Resources about the Stolen Generations, targeted at teachers https://australianstogether.org.au/discover-and-learn/
8. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) ‘The Stolen Generations’ includes resources about the history of policies relating to the Stolen Generations https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/stolen-generations
9. Australian Human Rights Commission ‘Track the History Timeline: The Stolen Generation’ includes a historic timeline of events and socioeconomic factors relating to the Stolen Generations https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/education/track-history-timeline-stolen-generations
10. Lifeline Support if you, a student or colleague are negatively impacted by themes of mental illness, trauma, grief and/or suicide raised in the book https://www.lifeline.org.au