The White Girl is a black and white story about Australian colonialism's malevolent legacies, and the courage, strength, and dignity of Indigenous resistance. It's a story about strong women, with whom Birch's life has been blessed. It is also a profound allegory of good and evil, and a deep exploration of human interaction, black and white, alternately beautiful and tender, cruel and unsettling.
- The Guardian,
"Birch is a writer with a profound gift for language and human insight. He writers with razor's edge emotional clarity and empathy about people and place--especially on those Australian margins, rural and urban. The White Girl showcases his gift."
- The Guardian,
"The way Birch describes the day-to-day existence of his characters, so sweetly rendered, gives them a universal quality. The story is a truth even while the specifics of this novel are fiction, and this tale is a revelation of small details."
- Sydney Morning Herald,
"[Tony Birch brings] a lifetime of knowledge about Australian history, social policy, and cultural identity to this book, a deceptively simple story about family love that is rich in humanity and purpose, and hope. The White Girl is worth your time and will reward you over and over again."
- Australian Book Review,
"[The White Girl] explores the legacy and ongoing fallout of the Stolen Generation, and also touches on matters that are still pertinent and ongoing: the vulnerability of Indigenous women to sexual predation specifically, but on a larger scale, generational violence and toxic masculinity."
- The Big Issue (Australia),
"Birch's stories have always exuded a warm, lived-in feel, even in their bleakest moments, and in The White Girl his style reaches an apotheosis: there is a profound and rare clarity in the prose, and the pacing is excellent."
- The Saturday Paper,
"The White Girl is approachable and fiercely readable, its linguistic and cultural power cloaked in deceptively simple language."
- Sydney Review of Books,
Tony Birch is a local treasure.
- Jacinta Parsons,
The White Girl is a tense and gripping read...an important window into a shameful period of Australia's very recent history, and a wonderful celebration of strong Indigenous women. It's a book that I hugged to my chest after reading the final page.
- Claire Nichols, The Book Show,
Tony Birch is one of those writers who has mastered the art of storytelling... His latest novel The White Girl is no different--in fact the characters he creates and the plotlines he weaves are almost hyperreal--you know people like Odette Brown and her grandbaby Sissy.
- Daniel Browning,
The White Girl is not given to sentimentality; instead it is a celebration of Aboriginal resilience and kinship in response to trauma.
- Arts Review,