Plot summary

In 1968, the Aborigines in Australia have recently been granted full citizenship rights in the country but are still largely treated as second class by the white majority. For instance, young-adult sisters Gail, Cynthia, and Julie, whose family has long lived on the Cummeragunja Reserve, are clearly the most-talented performers in a local talent content, but they are all but ignored. Only the show's Caucasian emcee Dave Lovelace, a failed musician who drowns his life failures in booze, sees their talent. So when Julie, the most talented and ambitious but perhaps the most naive of the sisters, suggests that they collaborate to audition to perform for the US troops in Vietnam, they all agree and decide to include their cousin Kay, who was part of the Stolen Generation of Aboriginal children who were taken away by the white authorities and forced to live as white because of her fair skin, but who ultimately made the conscious decision to stay away. However, Dave knows that they must put together a true act as opposed to the girls just standing and singing the country-and-Western songs to which they are most attuned, not because it is the music to which he is most attracted, but because it's what American audiences expect from dark-skinned girls, Dave transforms them into a girl soul group. They pass the audition, but are unprepared for the constant need to prove themselves while in Vietnam or for the country's war-zone conditions. But what may ultimately be their professional failing is their own differences, including their differences with Dave, who most often butts heads with Gail, who as the eldest has always been the de facto leader despite being the weakest performer of the four. But could the old adage be true that there is a fine line between love and hate?—Huggo