Six Degrees of Separation: From ‘Beezus and Ramona’ to ‘The Well’

It’s the first Saturday of the month, which means it’s time to participate in Six Degrees of Separation (check out Kate’s blog to find out the “rules” and how to participate)!

This month, the starting book is…

‘Beezus and Ramona’ by Beverly Cleary (2020)
I haven’t read this book. Indeed, I am not familiar with this author’s work at all. I know she writes for children and that she recently died, aged 104. I had to look up this title on Amazon to find out what it was about and it tells me it is “a humorous portrayal of the ups and downs of sisterhood”, which made me think about all the novels I had read featuring sisters… so the first link in the chain is…

‘Our Shadows’ by Gail Jones (2020)
This literary novel, which I read last year, is about two estranged sisters who grew up in the remote gold mining town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. One of the sisters is widowed relatively young after her husband dies of mesothelioma, a malignant tumour that is caused by inhaled asbestos fibres. This made me think of…

‘Dustfall’ by Michelle Johnston (2018)
Set in Wittennoom, Western Australia, this novel looks at the town’s deadly legacy in which hundreds of asbestos miners developed terminal mesothelioma. The story follows two doctors, a generation apart, who go to Wittenoom as a way to distance themselves from mistakes they have made in their medical careers. This made me think of…

‘The Good Doctor’ by Damon Galgut (2003)
Set in the “new” post-apartheid South Africa, this novel is about a staff doctor working in a deserted rural hospital, who is forced to share his room with a younger newly qualified doctor. This medical pairing is a metaphor for the new South Africa versus the old South Africa, but it is also an intriguing look at what happens to people living in isolated communities, where relationships between people can become strained and oppressive because they are living in such close proximity to one another. This made me think of…

‘The Grass is Singing’ by Doris Lessing (1950)
Lessing’s debut novel, this astonishingly gripping story is set in what was then Southern Rhodesia. It’s about a marriage between a “town girl” and a farmer which slowly begins to unravel over time, culminating in a murder. This marriage, under pressure on a farm, reminds me of…

‘Snake’ by Kate Jennings (2001)
This lyrically written novella follows the course of a marriage between two incompatible people in interwar Australia. The couple lives in an old house on an 800-acre irrigated farm 500 miles from the nearest city. The isolation puts a lot of strain on everyone. The intensity of the story and the strangeness of the relationship made me think of…

‘The Well’ by Elizabeth Jolley (1986)
Set on a sheep and wheat farm in rural Western Australia, the story charts the story of two women, an elderly widow and the young woman she “adopts” as a kind of daughter figure. It follows what happens when the pair, driving too fast, accidentally hit a creature on the farm track. They dispose of the body by pushing it down the farm’s unused well, which is covered over with a tin roof, but is it human or animal?

So that’s this month’s #6Degrees: from a children’s story about sisters to a strange and almost Gothic friendship between an elderly woman and her young companion, via stories set in rural Australia, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, many set on remote farms and about incompatible relationships. Coincidentally, three of the books are by women writers from my newly adopted state of Western Australia.

Have you read any of these books? 

Please note, you can see all my other Six Degrees of Separation contributions here.