Race relations in Australia's past, and, by implication, present are the accepted theme of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, and discussion of the novel, whatever success it is seen to have, has started from this assumption. There are, however, two further ways in which the book needs to be seen to appreciate how it explores beyond the social-racial level, and to pinpoint more accurately the role of Keneally as narrator. The first of these approaches is to set the Blacksmith story against that of its historical prototypes, the Governor brothers; the second is to see Jimmie not as fictional black or half-caste, but as the most successfully drawn of Keneally's recurrent sensitive, oppressed, ultimately self-destructive victims.

Keneally has stated he drew upon contemporary newspapers…. A more proximate source, however, which seems to have had considerable impact on the novel, is the retelling of the Governor story by Frank...