Pleased to receive great review from Steven Carroll in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
View Article: Saving Dragons Book Review
Publication: The Sydney Morning Herald
Date Published: 30/04/2025
Books
Saving Dragons
I’m proud to introduce my latest book, Saving Dragons, probably the most gratifying project of my career.
Russell Jack, the visionary founder of the internationally renowned Golden Dragon Museum, spent his life breaking barriers and preserving the history of the Chinese Australian community. Growing up in the shadow of the White Australia Policy, he turned adversity into strength, using the vibrant traditions of Chinese dragon processions as a bridge between cultures. Through the power of storytelling and historical insight, Dempsey paints a vivid portrait of a man who replaced fear with knowledge and ignorance with beauty.
This compelling biography explores Jack’s humble beginnings, family legacy, athletic achievements, community leadership, and the extraordinary creation of the Golden Dragon Museum—a cultural institution that transformed Bendigo’s understanding of its Chinese heritage.
Told with verve, compassion, and illuminating vignettes, Saving Dragons offers a unique slice of Australian social history and a testament to the resilience of a Chinese community that has shaped the nation’s identity.
In Bendigo, Saving Dragons can be ordered from Bookish phone 5406 0596 or online via Australian Scholarly Publishing.
When He Came Home: The Impact of War on Partners and Children of Veterans
When the Vietnam War veterans returned home to Australia, neither the veterans nor their partners were aware of the atrocious psychological harm with which they had been afflicted. Post-traumatic stress disorder had not yet been recognised and as the men fell victim to terrible moods and illnesses, they capitulated to their pain and isolated themselves and their families.
With great courage and without recognition, veterans’ wives held their families together in the face of government and community indifference and did so for decades.
When He Came Home is a belated recognition of these women, and it also focuses on how the issues of PTSD and suicide affect veterans who participate in contemporary conflicts. Told within an informed historical context and employing intimate narrative interviews, this important book examines the unexamined: how so many families have been brought to their knees and how such suffering can be prevented.
To order your copy please email, order online or telephone Australian Scholarly Publishing PTY LTD.
7 Lt Lothian St North, North Melbourne Victoria 3051 AUSTRALIA
T: +61 3 9329 6963 E: contact@scholarly.info
This is confronting, important reading.
Steven Carroll
Saturday Age (Oct 16, 2021)
This book reminded me I should not take no for an answer when asking my veteran patients to bring their partners for initial assessments and at key points in their treatment. Finally, it is an essential recommendation for the partners, and children, of our veteran patients.
Dr Duncan Wallace
Consultant Psychiatrist, Contractor to Defence, Australian Defence Force Centre for Mental Health. Australasian Psychiatry
The lives of the veterans and their families have a ripple effect through the entire community. There are not many people in Australia who have not been affected by war at some point in time. This book needs to be read by us all including politicians and officers of DVA. I thank Dianne Dempsey for putting it together and the partners/spouses for their contributions.
Dr Gail MacDonell OAM
The Vietnam Veterans’ Newsletter: Official journal of the Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia
Here is a book that does justice to the experience of our families. It is a book about what it was like for them when we came home. It relies on both quotes from many interviews and thorough research. The book is a perfect companion to The Long Shadow (Peter Yule) and is highly recommended.
Graham Walker, National Research Officer
Vietnam Veterans Federation
Girls In Our Town
Ghosts haunt the eerie Whipstick forest, just north of Bendigo.
While Sheba is not a girl to scare easily, when she hears a knocking at the door one dark night, it seems the past has come calling. Living in a small community, Sheba knows that whatever is out there she will have to face alone.
Her mother Clover has too many of her own troubles to bother with damaged Sheba and her sister, red-headed chubby Brigid, whose victim status at school is fast reaching dangerous levels.
The extended family, descended from Irish immigrants and steeped in the misery-laden but defiant history of this once gold-rich landscape, can’t possibly help her as she tries desperately to control her longing for her boss, the enigmatic solicitor, Mr Rowley.
Dianne Dempsey’s tender and funny tale is about a sharp-witted girl who yearns to find love and instead finds sex; who struggles to grow and instead finds neglect – it’s about girls in our town.
Her story resonates with secrets that gradually seep up from hidden places and surface with the dazzling clarity of truth.
Like the characters in this beguiling story, the Whipstick Forest is full of toughness and beauty. It is harsh, rich and resilient – hard to get to know and impossible to leave. The forest is not just the setting for this gothic tale; it is one of the principle characters. Dempsey cleverly reveals its dark secrets.
John Wolseley
For decades authors and filmmakers have ‘threatened’ a full-length treatment inspired by Bob Hudson’s beloved composition “Girls in Our Town”…so far there’s only been the song, and a photography exhibition. At long last, Dianne Dempsey’s evocative novel – with its engaging characters, smart humour, refreshing vernacular, mystery / romance elements – is that overdue expansion on the timeless Australiana classic.
Margret RoadKnight
After 20 years of analysing what’s right and what’s wrong about other people’s books, it takes courage to bring out a novel of your own. But Dianne Dempsey delivers her tale of love, family, trauma and a girl from the wrong side of the tracks with an unerring mix of comedy and poignancy.
Jane Sullivan
The Age literary journalist and book reviewer
Girls In Our Town
Bob Hudson ©1975
Girls in our town, they just haven’t a care
You see them on Saturday floating on air
Painting their toenails and washing their hair
Maybe tonight it’ll happen
Girls in our town they leave school at fifteen
Work at the counter or behind the machine
And spend all their money on making the scene
Then plan on going to England
Girls in our town go to parties in pairs
And sit ‘round the barbecue, give themselves airs
Then they go to the bathroom with their girlfriend who cares
Girls in our town are so lonely
The girls in our town are too good for the pill
But if you keep asking they probably will
Sometimes they like you or else for a thrill
And explain it away in the morning
The girls in our town get no help from their men
No one can let them be sixteen again
Things might get better but it’s hard to say when
If they only had someone to talk to
The girls in our town can be saucy and bold
At seventeen, no one is better to hold
Then they start havin’ kids, start gettin’ old
The girls in our town ...
The girls in our town