Cleven's amusing story becomes more captivating as Mavis desperately tries to hide Nevil from the rest of the community until he comes to his senses. She is terrified of what her brother, Booty, and Nevil's football team mates will do to him if they found out he was wearing 'frocks' - let alone make-up. To cover for Nevil's absence Mavis starts to make up lies about his whereabouts: from suffering from a mystery illness to studying at TAFE. Mavis keeps the inquisitive, and often meddlesome locals at bay for a while, but when Nevil doesn't turn up for football training, some members of the community drop by unannounced to see what's going on. Mavis is confronted by rumours initiated by her nosy neighbour, Mrs Warby, who freely shares it around that she has seen a strange looking female hanging out the washing in Mavis' backyard and she is determined to work out who this mystery woman is.

To make matters worse for Mavis, the arrival on her doorstep of a stranger looking for Nevil further sets tongues wagging. 'The white hatchback crawls down the street, slowing every now and then, the skinnythin wheels crunchin the gravel as it creeps along. Straight out I knowed this car don't belong in this town… A tall blonde-haired man gets out. Leanin one arm on the car door he yells out, “I'm after Nev Dooley”…' (42). Convinced that this must be Nevil's 'friend' (because he is wearing sandals) Mavis invites him inside to try to make sense of her son's recent behaviour. Nosy Mrs Warby thoughtfully offers Mavis advice on how to get rid of this suspicious character. Owing to the briefcase he is carrying, Mrs Warby concludes that he must, of course, be a drug dealer: 'It's all been going on behind your back, Mavis. Drug dealers are here, right in your house! All these years in Mandamooka I've never seen what those sorts of people look like. Today I have… Some bloke walked right in there a with a black port thing, a briefcase. I know a druggie when I see him. They always carry a briefcase!' (75).

Cleven effectively builds suspense and amusement while managing further to develop the comical and off-beat characters and maintain the bizarre, yet humorous, situations in which the reader finds them. Concerned about Nevil's apparent disappearance, his crazy girlfriend, Gracie, is convinced something sinister must have happened to him. In an attempt to get national television coverage of her missing boyfriend, Gracie participates in a land rights rally carrying an enormous photograph of Nevil. Mavis awakes from a nap in front of the TV to hear Gracie's voice. 'Gracie stands in front on protestors holdin a big sign whit the words: Have you seen this man? And a blown-up photo of Nevil holdin a stubbie in one hand a fish in the other' (54). Too late to get Nevil to see for himself, it is Mavis that is, ironically, turned into the mad woman who is seeing things. Cleven propels the reader through the text, encouraged to keep reading to discover not only how the characters got involved in certain predicaments but, even more entertainingly, how they will manage to escape from them.

Cleven's representations of hyper-femininity and hyper-masculinity not only amuse but also challenge assumptions about gender and question sexual stereotypes. Mavis' brother, Booty, organises some activities that he is convinced will effectively change Nevil's mind about wanting to be female. Hearing of Nevil's preposterous desire to be treated as a woman, Booty takes Nevil pig shooting and later arranges boxing matches in the hope of resurrecting Nevil's ultra-masculine image as local football hero. Nevil's perception of femininity is consistent with a hyper-feminised construction and he desires certain womanly accessories such as frocks, heavy make up and a feminine posture and walking style.

Although the narrative is very humorous, issues of particular concern to the Indigenous community, ranging from land rights to undue police attention are intentionally, albeit subtly, referred to in Cleven's text. The volatile relationship between Black and white frequently found in Australian communities has been originally presented in Bitin' Back, in terms of the levels on which its ironies operate. The blatant racism in Mandamooka is accepted as the way things are expected to be. The assumption of white superiority is further expressed when representations of race are presented in conjunction with ideologies of sexuality, in particular, female and non-heterosexual sexuality. The reliance of some characters on uninformed and inaccurate stereotypical images, that are readily accepted by mainstream Mandamooka, lead to suggestions of inappropriate sexuality and drug involvement.

Cleven's representations of the tense interracial relationships in conjunction with perceptions of female sexuality and attractiveness in the text are also reflective of the broader Australian community. The text engages with historical perceptions of Black women's sexual behaviour as promiscuous. When Mavis' best friend Gwen Hinch confronts the wife of the man with whom she has been having an affair with, the wife flatly refuses any possibility her husband was involved in such an affair because 'Darryl doesn't do that with…with black women!' (98-9). Consistent with patriarchal expectations of sexuality the adulterous Darryl was not ridiculed by the community in the way that Gwen was. As it was he who initiated the vicious and derogatory rumours about Gwen his reputation is not marred, although his masculine ego was bruised by Mavis when she publicly humiliated him in the bar following the altercation between Gwen and his wife.

Notions of beauty in relation to Black and white also reiterate hegemonic concepts of white as appealing and Black as unattractive. Mavis describes her face as 'wide as Dotty's arse, plain, fat whit gooby lips, fuzzy hair like a pot scourer, a boxer's nose, thin black moustache on me top lip n skin like sandpaper' (95). Yet, interestingly, Mavis' dialogue with herself subverts the concept of feminine beauty by describing such stereotypical notions of beauty, for example, blond hair and make-up, in an abstract and, in a way, crude manner. For example, although Mavis perceives the appearance of her rival, Dotty Reedman, as unappealing she does concede that Dotty does represent an image of feminine sex appeal. 'She's all tarted up. Dirty blonde hair high as an ant hill. Mini-skirt so short I can almost see her bloomers pokin out. Face painted up like a crayon picture. Blood-red lips, blue eyeshada, rust-coloured cheeks painted round like half bad apples, n eyelashes so long they look like gonna sweep the floor' (95).

While Mavis may assert that Dotty looks ridiculous, she still feels physically inadequate herself and wonders if she should make an effort to conform to such concepts of beauty. After seeing Dotty 'all tarted up' Mavis thinks to herself: 'A woman jus can't win, no matter which way I cut it. I glance down at the ol house dress I got on, small holes in the hem, faded, too big for me; jus flat out ugly' (95). Mavis does later conform to the perceived image of femininity and, although she does not consider herself 'sexy like that piece a meat cross there' (155), she thinks of herself as feminine and appealing. 'But all the same I look all right, I do. The dress I got on is new - Nevil n Trevor got it for me. Bright, covered in flower patterns, all colours…drop-down neckline, part of me chest showin…before I left home, Nev put some shit on me face; lipstick, eyeshada stuff, n done me hair up in a braid' (155).

The conclusion of the novel apparently divulges the reason why Nevil has assumed a different self which, on the surface, appears to be in complete contradiction to his own. Through his expression of a new, and strikingly unorthodox identity, Nevil attempts to subvert the repressive hegemonic ideologies by which he feels trapped. The correlation between Jean Rhys the writer and Nevil becomes somewhat clearer as Nevil identifies with aspects of her life and also with the protagonist, Antoinette, in her 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea that re-writes Jane Eyre from the standpoint of 'the madwoman in the attic'. Cleven, in an interview, explained that she chose the pseudo-identity of Jean Rhys for Nevil to exemplify the isolation felt (perhaps sometimes felt by herself) in that community, and the frustration of not being able to express oneself in the way one wants.* Notions of madness are also a reflection of Rhys' characters, by in particular, the confused and disorientated Antoinette.

Cleven's David Unaipon Award-winning novel extends the ever-increasing and eclectic genre of Australian Indigenous writing. On the surface Bitin' Back is a pleasant, entertaining novel, yet its strategically presented subtle ironies challenge the reader to question the racial and sexual stereotypes that act to secure conformity and limit individual expression in contemporary Australian society.

Barb King recently completed Honours in Women's Studies at The University of Queensland and is currently working there as a Research Assistant.

* Vivienne Cleven, 'Writing Bitin' Back' in Writing Queensland Vol. 96, 2001:7