Mutant Message Down Under - Softcover

Morgan, Marlo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060926317 ISBN 13: 9780060926311

Publisher: Perennial, 1995

Synopsis

Mutant Message Down Under is the fictional account of an American woman's spiritual odyssey through outback Australia. An underground bestseller in its original self-published edition, Marlo Morgan's powerful tale of challenge and endurance has a message for us all.

Summoned by a remote tribe of nomadic Aborigines to accompany them on walkabout, the woman makes a four-month-long journey and learns how they thrive in natural harmony with the plants and animals that exist in the rugged lands of Australia's bush. From the first day of her adventure, Morgan is challenged by the physical requirements of the journey -- she faces daily tests of her endurance, challenges that ultimately contribute to her personal transformation.

By traveling with this extraordinary community, Morgan becomes a witness to their essential way of being in a world based on the ancient wisdom and philosophy of a culture that is more than 50,000 years old.

About this title

About the Author

Marlo Morgan is a retired health-care professional. She lives in Lee Summit, Missouri. Her first novel, Mutant Message Down Under, was a New York Times bestseller for thirty-one weeks and was published in twenty-four countries.

From Publishers Weekly

Morgan's much-hyped first novel, a fictionalized account of a "walkabout" she took in the Outback with a group of Aborigines, gains from the use of authentic detail, although the storytelling is hindered by the author's heavy New Age agenda and incessant cultural proselytizing. A 50-ish alternative health practitioner from the American Midwest, Morgan was working with underprivileged Aborigine youths in the inner cities of Australia when a group of Aborigines offered her a chance to learn firsthand about their culture. Morgan's account of the tribe's customs, healing methods, food-finding tactics, etc. is absorbing, and her willingness to forgo Western luxuries and to relish the experience is courageous and touching. Less compellingly, the author claims that she was "chosen" by the Aborigines to tell the rest of humanity that the so-called "real people" are refusing to reproduce because of the ravages of Western civilization, and that Westerners have a limited time to clean up their act. Morgan's rudimentary writing skills are stretched to the limit, and she lessens the power of her story and its egalitarian lessons by adopting the perspective that Western culture is innately inferior to the naturalistic beliefs of the Aborigines. Still, with its high-powered package of New Age philosophy wrapped in an adventure narrative, this book may be the next Celestine Prophecy. (It is interesting to observe that both books began life by being self-published.) Illustrations by Carri Garrison not seen by PW. 250,000 first printing; Literary Guild Special Release; Doubleday Book Club alternate; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Perennial
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0060926317
• ISBN 13: 9780060926311
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208