Self-reflective counter-narrative in Melissa Lucashenko’s indigenous young adult novel Too Much Lip

In her seventh novel Too Much Lip, Australian Aboriginal writer Melissa Lucashenko employs a self-reflective counter-narrative to engage in Australians’ national reconciliation in the new Millenium, exploring possibilities for Indigenous young adults to transcend racial victimhood and enhance agency. This article constructs its framework around a self-reflective counter-narrative and draws on Jacques Derrida and Roberto Esposito’s insights into auto-immunization, especially their perceptions of contamination and contagion, to consolidate its sub-arguments. Focusing on the Salter sisters’ tortuous negotiation of ethnicity and sexuality, Lucashenko scrutinizes Indigenous “victim” narratives intertwined with colonial, patriarchal and female auto-immunization, presents the possibility of transcending Indigenous intra- and inter-racial “hate” narratives through disclosing racial contamination within and among First Nations and white settlers, and envisions Indigenous “agency” narratives premised on external and internal contagion to promote individual development and collective well-being. Through such a self-reflective counter-narrative, Lucashenko calls on Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers to promote Australia’s constitutional recognition of and institutional support for the First Nations with a concerted effort.