Tag: Focus on WA writers

Australia, Author, Book review, crime/thriller, David Whish-Wilson, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, Fremantle Press, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting

‘True West’ by David Whish-Wilson

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Fiction – paperback; Fremantle Press; 264 pages; 2019.

We all know that teenage life can be angst-ridden and problematic, but for the 17-year-old protagonist in True West, by David Whish-Wilson, it is positively deadly.

In this gritty crime thriller, Lee Southern is on the run from the Geraldton-based bikie gang he betrayed. His father was the first president of that gang, but now he is missing and rumour has it he has been murdered. As payback, Lee torched the gang’s marijuana crop and now there’s hell to pay.

The story is set in Perth in 1988 against a backdrop of abhorrent hate crimes associated with the neo-Nazi Australian Nationalist Movement (rebranded here as the Australian Patriotic Movement, APM). This lends True West a visceral, political edge and a ring of authenticity.

Perth underworld

Lee, unfortunately, gets caught up in the APM’s extremist agenda. As he flees hundreds of kilometres south in his uncle’s old Ford F350 truck, he finds himself in Perth, an unfamiliar city, where he tries to make a living as a rogue tow truck driver. But when he unwittingly competes with an existing monopoly, he’s severely beaten up.

From there, it’s all downhill as he is coerced into the “employ” of people who don’t have his best interests at heart. Instead, they want to use him to progress their own hate-filled white supremacist agenda, roping him into all manner of violent crimes, including armed robbery, firebombing Asian-owned businesses and murdering a high-profile political figure.

Living on his nerves and doped up with illicit substances, Lee uses the survivalist skills — instilled in him by his father, a Vietnam vet with a “prepper” mindset — to navigate his way through Perth’s violent underworld. It’s touch and go whether he will come out the other side in one piece.

Compelling story

If it sounds like a page-turning dramatic story, it is! But it also incorporates a tender love affair between Lee and his teenage sweetheart, Emma, which showcases his humanity and softer side.

There’s no doubt that True West is a tense, suspenseful read, full of not-very-nice people doing not-very-nice things, but it’s the teenage protagonist that lends the novel a certain charm.

As a likeable rogue, Lee is resourceful, practical, a roll-up-your-sleeves type of kid. He might do dubious things on the wrong side of the law, but he’s got a good heart and knows racism is a repellent justification for horrific acts of violence.

This is a terrific read — and I am now looking forward to the follow-up, I Am Already Dead, which was published earlier this year.

David Whish-Wilson is a local writer, who lives in Fremantle and teaches creative writing at Curtin University. I read this novel as part of my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. You can find out more about this reading project here and see what books I’ve reviewed from this part of the world on my Focus on Western Australian Writers page. 

Australia, Author, Book review, Emma Young, Fiction, Fremantle Press, general, literary fiction, Publisher, Setting

‘The Disorganisation of Celia Stone’ by Emma Young

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Fiction – paperback; Fremantle Press; 352 pages; 2023.

It’s hard not to draw a comparison between Helen Fielding’s 1996 novel Bridget Jones’s Diary (which sold more than two million copies worldwide in its first 10 years of release) and The Disorganisation of Celia Stone, a new novel by Perth journalist Emma Young, which feels like an updated version for a new generation and a new century.

But where Bridget Jones explores life as a “singleton” bumbling her way through a chaotic love life in pursuit of a husband, Young’s protagonist, Celia Stone, is a happily married 30-something who runs her super-organised life via extensive checklists and time-managed schedules.

And where Bridget Jones cleverly combined wit with vulnerability, Celia Stone is a control freak who rarely lightens up. She spends her days:

  • juggling a high-stress job as a financial counsellor
  • co-ordinating a hectic social life
  • maintaining a rigorous exercise regime
  • obsessing over her weight
  • cooking healthy meals from scratch
  • running a successful side hustle blog
  • writing a non-fiction book after hours
  • keeping a journal
  • managing her and her husband’s money so that they can achieve “financial freedom”
  • visiting her grandfather in his retirement home
  • keeping her dad company when she can to ease his loneliness following the death of his wife (and Celia’s mother) from cancer a couple of years earlier.

She’s got so many balls up in the air, you wonder how she’s juggling them all so effectively — and what disaster will befall her if she drops one!

Dear Diary

The story, which is told in the form of a 12-month diary, is written in a friendly, intimate and often self-critical voice. And there’s an intensity that shines through that goes beyond mere passion.

It’s clear that Celia wants to control all aspects of her work and home life, leaving little room for spontaneity, relaxation and fun. Every little thing she does has to have a purpose, which means she is constantly evaluating every action and then feeling bad when she fails to meet the unnaturally high expectations she sets herself. It’s an exhausting way to live.

Sunday 17 February […] Achieved so much, yet negative thoughts plaguing me, about everything not achieved, the problems awaiting me at work tomorrow. Had to have a little cry, which always unnerves Jes [her husband], kind of like how it does a faithful dog — they come and sit by you, and look concerned, but can’t really do much.

As the year progresses, Celia’s need to schedule everything she does becomes increasingly more obsessive. And when a health issue threatens to throw her timetable off course, it becomes clear that she’s got “issues” that require redress.

Striving for perfection

The Disorganisation of Celia Stone — Young’s second novel — isn’t a typical “sad girl” story.

Yes, it’s melancholy in places, but Celia has a strong sense of who she is and what she wants out of life. She cares about others, is passionate about causes she believes in and is prepared to put in the work to reap rewards. There are moments of sheer joy in the book — when she lands a publishing contract, for instance — but it does occasionally head into navel-gazing territory and isn’t afraid to explore the darker and more introspective aspects of the female experience.

Much of the time, I wanted to tell her to chill out. To get out of her head. To stop thinking about things so much. To disengage from the world just a little. And to enjoy living in the moment rather than always throwing an eye to the future.

Reading it made me glad my 30s are long behind me!

Millennial life

But it’s a wonderful exploration of what life is like for Millennials right now. It respectfully addresses issues related to financial security, body image, eating disorders, mental health and the societal pressures on young women, in particular, to have it all — a successful career, a side hustle, a home, a happy marriage and children — while also being Instagram-ready beautiful and “well maintained” at all times.

The Disorganisation of Celia Stone offers us a glimpse inside a year-in-the-life of an anxiety-ridden people pleaser, but it also shows someone eager to embrace self-development and become a more rounded, balanced person. It ends on a happy, optimistic note.

From what I can tell, the novel is only available in Australia, but international readers can order it direct from the publisher, Fremantle Press, or try the independent bookstore Readings.com.au, which delivers worldwide.

Finally, half the royalties the author receives from the sale of this novel will be donated to the Australian-based climate think tank Beyond Zero Emissions.

Emma Young is a digital reporter at WAToday. I read this novel as part of my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. You can find out more about this reading project here and see what books I’ve reviewed from this part of the world on my Focus on Western Australian Writers page. 

20 books of summer, 20 books of summer (2023), Australia, Author, Book review, David Allan-Petale, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, Fremantle Press, literary fiction, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting

‘Locust Summer’ by David Allan-Petale

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Fiction – paperback; Fremantle Press; 240 pages; 2021.

Having the courage to forge your own path in life, free from parental expectations and obligations, is at the heart of this fine novel by David Allan-Petale.

Set in Septimus, a fictional town in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt, it tells the story of a young city journalist who returns home to the family farm to help bring in the final harvest before the property is sold.

As well as being a bittersweet homage to rural life and farming, it’s also an evocative story about loyalty, resilience, grief and illness.

Harvest calling

It’s 1986 and Rowan Brockman is a poorly paid journalist in Perth working the crime beat under Holt, a gruff but experienced editor. It’s the kind of city job Rowan’s always wanted, although he grew up in the country — “up the Mid West” — on a wheat farm, and there was an expectation he might stay on to run it with his elder brother, Albert.

But Albert is dead, thanks to a horrific mining accident, and the “spare” to the “heir” is not interested in pursuing this kind of life. The result is that there’s an unspoken rift within the family because Rowan’s choice to forgo a life on the land puts the future of the property at risk.

Every year when Rowan’s mum calls and asks him to help with the harvest, there’s always an excuse not to go, but this year is different: Rowan’s dad has dementia and can no longer work. Once the final harvest is finished, the house will be packed up and the land sold to a university for agricultural research purposes. There’s no alternative other than to say “yes” and ask Holt for the time off work to do it.

Mum had a workforce for the fields. Contracts for shipments. Buyers lined up for the grain. Why did I need to come? If she was serious about selling, then movers could pack the house. She already took care of Dad and refused all help.
“Rowan, will you come?”
The sea breathed through the living room curtains. Rising light was bringing the promise of another hot day; hotter inland where desert winds trapped eddies of heat over the paddocks of wheat ready for threshing.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, and Mum breathed a sigh of relief.

Country life

In Septimus, on the farm, Rowan falls back into the rhythms of country life.

As well as numerous riotous booze-fuelled evenings in the pub and an attempt to rekindle an old romance with Alison, his ex-girlfriend, Rowan gets his soft city hands dirty under the instruction of loyal farmhand Sterlo, who has worked for the family for years. Rowan is the square peg in the round hole, immensely aware he’s not cut out for this kind of work, but doing what he can to fit in. But it’s tough and he makes mistakes.

A lot happens in three short weeks as pressure to get the harvest finished before the weather changes and wheat prices drop continues to mount. There are added complications: day-long harvest bans because of the risk of bushfire; a pair of farm dogs (brilliantly named Bradman and Lillee) are euthanised after they go on a sheep-killing spree; an unplanned drive across a vast salt plain goes disastrously wrong; and Rowan’s father sparks a community-wide search when he disappears one afternoon.

Allan-Petale captures not just the atmosphere of a baking hot summer, the wide open spaces of the Wheatbelt and the time-worn routine of harvest work, but the sense of community spirit — and gossip — which will be familiar to anyone who’s grown up in these kinds of rural locales known the world over.

There’s a lot to admire in this captivating novel. As a story about a man making peace with his decisions, it’s also a touching examination of parental love and the possibility of fresh starts. The mother-son relationship is particularly well done.

Unsurprisingly, the manuscript for Locust Summer was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 2017; the book was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Awards in 2021; and it was longlisted for the ALS Gold Medal in 2022.

If you liked this, you might also like:

‘Solace’ by Belinda McKeon: A doctoral student in Dublin struggles to reconcile his city life with the obligation he feels towards helping his father run the family farm.

This is my 18th book for #20BooksOfSummer 2023. I bought it in mid-2021, not long after I read Lisa’s review at ANZLitLovers. Since then, the author has become my colleague: we both work for the same organisation here in Perth and, after a recent restructure, are now sitting on the same team! I’d like to stress this hasn’t affected my opinion of the book; I just wouldn’t have bothered reviewing it if I hadn’t liked it.

This book also qualifies for my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. You can find out more about this reading project, along with a list of Western Australian books already reviewed on the site, here. 

Australia, Author, Book review, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, John Kinsella, literary fiction, Poetry, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, Transit Lounge, verse novel

‘Cellnight: A Verse Novel’ by John Kinsella

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Fiction – paperback; Transit Lounge; 208 pages; 2023. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

When it comes to local novels, I couldn’t get more local than this one. John Kinsella’s Cellnight is set in Fremantle, where I live, and is dotted with references to familiar landmarks — the Roundhouse, Esplanade Park, Rous Head, South Mole lighthouse, the CY O’Connor statue et al — and offshore shipping lanes, such as Gage Roads and Cockburn Sound.

It tells the story, entirely in verse, of the visit of the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet to the port city in the early 1980s when the Cold War was at its height.

At the time Fremantle was a hotbed of non-violent protests against US nuclear warships arriving in port. (This fascinating online report by David Worth goes into more detail about the demonstrations.)

of an inlanding
eye, but coast
imbued
and the carrier
Carl Vinson
all all those
anti-nuclear
groups of Fremantle
you weren’t part of
but overlapped
at protests
confusing the issue —
the Project Icebergs
and others

At the same time, Aboriginal deaths in custody were in the headlines, specifically that of John Pat, a 16-year-old First Nations boy, who died while in the custody of Western Australia Police in 1983. Four police officers and a police aide were charged with manslaughter but were acquitted by an all-White jury and reinstated. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, “Pat’s death became for Aboriginal people a symbol of injustice and oppression”.

In Cellnight, Kinsella brings these two important historical issues together in a compelling narrative that fuses sonnets with vivid, almost cinematic, storytelling.

The tale is framed around a homeless man who lives beneath the limestone cliffs on Bather’s Beach in Fremantle. He is arrested for demonstrating against the nuclear-armed US Seventh Fleet and while in police custody witnesses the brutal bashing of an Aboriginal boy. He does not intend to keep this to himself.

At three am
a young
Noongar kid
is brought in
and abused
and kicked
and thrown
until he is limp
around a circle
of constables,
the sergeant watching on.
You yell,
you say
I will tell all
to the world.
And you get a thumping.

The book, set in both the past and the present, explores systemic racism and abuse, politics, protests, colonisation, disenfranchisement, environmentalism and history through the medium of poetry.

There are beautiful descriptions of nature and the sea — all under threat by progress and development — and even the lines describing the mess and noise and pollution of a working port and the hustle and bustle of the river traffic have their own strange beauty.

all the taking
for granted
as boats grapple
curled surf
and tubes
are bisected
all swimming
over weedbeds
all ripping
out of shoalfish
all boats on canals
loud as settlement
all taboos
and respects
all sacredness

The quick-fire pace of the stanzas means it’s hard not to rush to the end, but readers who take their time will find much to admire in this carefully considered blend of stunning imagery and social commentary. It’s a book that demands more than one reading.

John Kinsella lives in the Western Australian Wheatbelt, so this book qualifies for my ongoing #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters project. You can find out more about this reading project, along with a list of Western Australian books already reviewed on the site, here. 

Author, Book review, dystopian, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, Harper Collins Australia, Publisher, Reading Projects, Sara Foster, Setting, UK

‘The Hush’ by Sara Foster

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Fiction – paperback; Harper Collins; 356 pages; 2021.

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale meets Joanna Ramos’ The Farm in this brilliantly compelling novel by Australian-based English-born writer Sara Foster.

The Hush is set in the UK in the near future, about a decade after “the pandemic” (presumably Covid-19) began. Now there’s a new health crisis wreaking havoc, one that’s resulting in an epidemic of seemingly healthy babies dying at birth.

Within a few nightmarish months, almost every hospital across the country had experienced such an event. At first it was one in ten births, then one in eight. Now the ratio is creeping closer to one in five. Caesarians don’t help. It doesn’t matter how rapidly a neonate is plucked from the womb — if it’s an Intrapartum X baby it will go limp the moment it’s touched. The babies demonstrate no sign of pain, and no will to stay in the world. They are pristine human specimens.

They just won’t breathe.

The Government, hellbent on trying to figure out what’s going on, introduce sweeping new powers to monitor women’s well-being, including the compulsory wearing of waterproof watches that track ID, credit card payments and health data. This is under the guise of keeping women safe, but it’s really a way to keep tabs on their reproductive systems. Under the law, the simple purchase of a pregnancy test now requires the presentation of ID, and the test must be taken onsite, the “results recorded and the health authorities notified”.

Into this maelstrom of surveillance and paranoia and the wearing down of women’s reproductive rights, pregnant teenagers begin to vanish without trace. A young activist, dubbed PreacherGirl, draws the population’s attention to their plight but her videos and website are taken down by the Government — and girls continue to disappear.

A thrilling dystopian tale

An exciting mix of dystopia and thriller, The Hush is framed around a tenderly depicted relationship between a mother and daughter who are drawn into an ever-deepening conspiracy reminiscent of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. 

The story, fast-paced and full of urgency, alternates between both characters’ viewpoints. Emma, who is an overworked stressed-out midwife, has witnessed hundreds of stillbirths and knows what is at stake, while Lainey fears for a  pregnant school friend who is one of the disappeared.

A third character, Emma’s own estranged mother, comes into the story a little later on to help fight the good fight. She’s a renowned feminist who lives in Australia (sounds like someone familiar) and just so happens to be in the UK on a book tour at just the right moment!

There’s a wider cast of supporting female characters that showcase how women can achieve — and overcome — anything if they band together. (Not as cheesy as it sounds!)

But what gives the book its real edge and power is the believability of the setting. Foster depicts a world teetering on the brink of chaos and fear, where climate threats, anxiety, populism, terrorism and media hysteria combine to create something that feels as if it is lifted from today’s news headlines.

The Hush has been optioned for development as a television series.

I read this book for Bill’s Australian Women Writers Gen 5 Week, which was held on 15-22 January, but typically, having recently started a new job, I am waaaaaay behind in my reviewing obligations. Better late than never, I guess!

And because the author resides in Perth (she moved here in 2004 and has recently completed her PhD at Curtin University), the book also qualifies for my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. You can find out more about this reading project here and see what books I’ve reviewed from this part of the world on my Focus on Western Australian Writers page. 

Alf Taylor, Australia, Author, Book review, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, literary fiction, Magabala Books, Poetry, Publisher, Reading First Nations Writers, Reading Projects, Setting, short stories

‘Cartwarra or what?’ by Alf Taylor

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Fiction – paperback; Magabala Books; 156 pages; 2022.

Cartwarra is a Nyoongar word that roughly translates to “silly” or “crazy”.

In the Foreword to Alf Taylor’s book, Cartwarra or what?, the academic Anne Brewster writes: “You’ll understand the power and reach of the word by the time you finish the book.” She’s right.

This is a truly remarkable and engaging collection of poems and short stories from a widely respected and prolific First Nations writer. Despite some of the heavy themes — alcoholism, poverty and prejudice, for instance — that underpin his work, Taylor writes with a sense of mischief: humour and wry wit are never too far away.

 Dry humour

Take the short story “Charlie” in which a 60-year-old man is arrested for being drunk and disorderly in the WA gold mining town of Kalgoorlie. He’s thrown into jail for the night and then released without charge, the sergeant warning him that he shouldn’t pick a fight with Paddy Hannan and think he can get away with it. Paddy, it turns out, is a statue! (This one here, in fact, of Irishman Patrick “Paddy” Hannan.)

Many characters in his other short stories enjoy ribbing one another — or taking the piss, as we might say, cadging money from whoever’s lucky enough to have a few dollars and chasing others for a charge (drink). Indeed, his ear for dialogue and (sometimes crude) vernacular is spot on, bringing conversations alive and making them crackle with repartee and wit.

This humour shines through in some of his poems, too. “Nyoongar Woman and a Mobile Phone” is an example:

No more reading smoke signals
pick up mobile phone and talk —
to who? She might say
the Kimberleys, the Wongis, Yamitjis, Nyoongars,
or to any blackfella’s
got my number;

she scratches her head
in eager anticipation:
Huh, huh,
‘nother ‘lation on the line
‘Yes, my dear. Oh hello’
‘How are you?’
‘What!’
‘You want twenty dollars?’
‘But I got fuck-all!
You got your money today.’
‘Why me?’
‘Um not a big shot
Nyoongar yorgah
’cause I work for A.L.S. [Aboriginal Legal Service]’
‘No, I got nothing!’
‘Um wintjarren like you.’
‘Yeah and fuck you too!’

Sombre stories

But the flipside to the laughter isn’t far away. In the opening story, “Wildflowers”, Taylor gives voice to the pain and fear of a mother whose daughter is stolen by policemen on horseback while out picking wildflowers:

It all happened within a split second of fierce movement. But to Ada it would come to seem a slow-motion replay in her mind. Ada had just barely touched the flowers when her daughter was snatched from the ground, and the troopers held her tightly. Queenie screamed and screamed for her mother. As the troopers rode off with the screaming child, the dust lingered high in the late morning. All Ada could see were the beautiful petals falling aimlessly to the ground, amidst the red dust.

Taylor is, himself, a member of the Stolen Generations and was raised in New Norcia Mission, Western Australia. As the blurb on the back of this edition states, his work “exposes uncomfortable truths in the lives of his Aboriginal characters”.

In Cartwarra or what? we meet an underclass of Aboriginal people, many cut off from Country and culture, struggling to get by. But Taylor also highlights the strong bonds between Aboriginal Australians, their tight-knit family and kinship groups, their love, care and kindness towards one another, and their enduring resourcefulness and resilience.

I much enjoyed spending time in their company.

I read this book for my #ReadingFirstNationsWriters project, which you can read more about here. You can see all the books reviewed as part of this project on my dedicated First Nations Writers page. It’s also a contender for my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. You can find out more about this reading project, along with a list of Western Australian books already reviewed on the site, here. 

Please note, Cartwarra or what? is only available as an eBook outside of Australia. If you would prefer a paperback edition, you can order it from the independent bookstore Readings.com.au. Shipping info here.

20 books of summer, 20 books of summer (2022), Australia, Author, Book review, Focus on WA writers, Fremantle Press, memoir, Non-fiction, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, true crime, Wendy Davis

‘Don’t Make a Fuss: It’s only the Claremont Serial Killer’ by Wendy Davis

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Non-fiction – paperback; Fremantle Press; 2016 pages; 2022.

This is a story about the tragic consequences for all women when one woman speaks up and nobody listens.

The above line, quoted on the back cover of Wendy Davis’s memoir Don’t Make a Fuss, perfectly encapsulates the moral of this story.

Wendy, a 40-year-old social worker at a hospital in Perth, was randomly attacked at her workplace by an onsite contractor in 1990. He grabbed her from behind while she was sitting at her desk alone in her office. He put a cloth over her mouth so she couldn’t scream and tried to drag her into a nearby toilet cubicle. Wendy managed to fight him off and ran for help.

The culprit, a Telecom (now Telstra) technician, was charged with the relatively minor charge of common assault, told to undergo counselling and kept his job. Meanwhile, Wendy’s shock, trauma and concerns were dismissed by the police, by Telecom (who claimed the man was having “relationship problems” and was a “good worker” with a “good future ahead of him”) and even by her husband (a policeman), whom she later divorced.

She buried her fears and never talked about what happened. She left her job, even though she loved it and had worked hard to achieve her position, and tried to put it all behind her. She remarried and moved to Tasmania.

Claremont serial killer

Meanwhile, the man that attacked her went on to murder two women, and a suspected third, in what became known as the Claremont serial killings, which occurred in 1996-1997. He remained undetected for almost a decade, but in 2016 he was arrested by the Special Crime Squad which had ploughed extra resources into investigating the killings.

Bradley Robert Edwards, 48, was charged with…

the wilful murders of 23-year-old Jane Rimmer and twenty-seven-year-old Ciara Glennon, who had disappeared from Claremont in 1996 and 1997, the abduction and rape of a seventeen-year-old woman in Claremont in 1995, and the sexual assault of an eighteen-year-old woman in Huntingdale in 1998, with both of the latter offences including deprivation of liberty. […] Police were still investigating the 1996 disappearance of another woman from Claremont, eighteen-year-old Sarah Spiers.

Response to arrest

Wendy’s memoir is written as a response to the news of Edwards’ arrest, which affected her deeply. She had spent 25 years pretending the attack hadn’t happened, burying it deep in her subconscious, until she received an unexpected call from Western Australia police at her current home in Hobart, which made it all come rushing back.

I had forced the trauma deep down. As people, especially women, of my time were taught to do, I just ‘got on with it’. I didn’t make a fuss.

Her story is written in an intimate but forthright style and swings between Wendy’s life in the immediate aftermath of the attack and the resurgence of anger and grief she felt more than two-and-a-half decades later. She details her involvement in the state trial (she was called as a witness), which took seven months and was conducted without a jury, but actually took years to get to trial.

What emerges is a portrait of an intelligent, thoughtful and resilient woman, now in her 60s, who effectively suffered three traumas: the attack itself, in 1990; the dismissal of her concerns by the authorities immediately afterwards; and a resurgence of psychological trauma upon news of Edwards’ arrest and the subsequent trial.

Taking concerns seriously

The issue that hits home hardest, however, is the importance of taking women’s concerns seriously. While Wendy’s story is written with the benefit of hindsight, it’s hard not to see how Edwards’ terrible deeds may have been stopped if Wendy’s “incident” had been taken more seriously in the first place.

A meeting with Telecom, just a week after Edwards had tried to abduct her, is a case in point. Wendy attends the meeting with her husband, not sure what it is going to be about, but then discovers it’s the company’s way of making excuses for their employee and of ensuring that Wendy won’t go on to sue them.

The manager went on to say that, although he understood that I was shocked by what had happened, it would not benefit anyone if this promising employee lost his job, his career. I was rendered speechless for a moment or two. When I recovered, I told him that I thought I was going to lose my life. I told him it was not normal behaviour to attack a complete stranger because you were having difficulties in your relationship. I said that he’d had cable ties in his pocket, that he’d put something over my mouth, tried to drag me into the toilet, that I was still bruised and in shock.

The manager tells her that it wasn’t unusual for Telecom employees to carry cable ties, that he’d never done anything like this before and that counselling would help him with his “current personal issues”. Wendy claims the manager was “clearly not hearing my account of the events” and that she left the meeting feeling anxious, angry, concerned and totally disempowered.

It’s hard to read this compelling memoir and come away from it without feeling the same.

This is my 10th book for #20booksofsummer 2022 edition. I bought it new from Dymocks not long after it was released.

And because the author grew up in Western Australia and lived in Perth for much of her life, this book qualifies for my ongoing Focus on Western Australian Writers reading project, which you can read more about here. 

Australia, Author, Book review, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, literary fiction, Penguin, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, Tim Winton

‘In the Winter Dark’ by Tim Winton

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Fiction – paperback; Penguin; 176 pages; 2010.

First published in 1988, Tim Winton’s early novella In the Winter Dark is a brilliant slice of Australian Gothic.

It builds on the myth of exotic big cats prowling the Australian bush to create a compelling tale of suspense and intrigue, one that is easily read in a single heart-in-the-mouth sitting.

Set in a deeply forested valley called Sink that has just three houses, a swamp and a river, it tells the story of four neighbours who are fearful of a mysterious creature prowling around their properties. It kills a small pet dog first, eats out the throat of a kangaroo that is found stuck in a fence and decimates a flock of Muscovy ducks and a goat. Later, a flock of 20 sheep is disembowelled.

Tension within the residents builds, not least because there are fears the creature may take a human next, but there are differences of opinion about how to handle the threat.

Old sheep farmer Maurice, who grew up in the valley and has lived with his wife, Ida, for decades, thinks it’s best to take matters into their own hands. He has a shotgun and knows how to use it.

But his neighbour, Murray Jacobs, who has recently sold his lawnmower business in the city to buy the old homestead set amongst orchards, wants to call in the authorities — someone from the shire council or maybe the police.

While Ronnie, a young drug-addicted woman who lives on the other side of the valley, just wants it sorted: she’s got other things to worry about such as the impending birth of her baby and whether her musician boyfriend will ever return from touring.

When the story begins, this quartet of diverse and distinctive characters barely knows each other; by the end, they are very well acquainted — whether they want to be or not.

Dangerous creature 

First edition

Told partly in the first person from Maurice’s point of view and the rest in the third person, the narrative flits around from character to character, sometimes feeling disjointed and confused.

I often had to re-read paragraphs to ensure I understood what was going on. But I think this disorientation is deliberate because it means you’re not sure who to trust or what to think about the dangerous creature supposedly lying in wait. Does it actually exist? Or is there a more rational explanation for the deaths of the farm animals?

He stopped, though, when something caught his eye. Something red. The wet-stiff grass seemed to shiver. Jacob reached for a stick. As he climbed through the fence, the stick snagged in the wire and he fumbled a second and left it there. From across the road, in the tall grass, he heard panting. Well, it might have been panting. He stood there in the road, wishing he could just walk away, but he was afraid to turn his back. Whatever it was, it was moving again. He could see its slow passage through the grass.

The claustrophobic atmosphere is enhanced by the setting. As ever in a Winton story, the landscape is a character in its own right. This time it’s the forest comprised of tall jarrah trees, which evoke that “big church feeling” and are shrouded in mystery thanks to “all those fairy tales […] all those stories we brought with us from another continent, other centuries”.

There’s no neat conclusion to In the Winter Dark, but it does have a dramatic ending — which is foreshadowed on the first page in which Maurice states he often feels “all hot and guilty and scared and rambling and wistful” when he thinks back on what happened 12 months earlier…

I just sit here and tell the story as though I can’t help it.

The film adaptation of In the Winter Dark, starring  Brenda Blethyn, Ray Barrett, Richard Roxburgh and Miranda Otto, was released in 1998 and was nominated for three AFI awards. Dark and moody, it is faithful to the book. You can watch it on YouTube:

I read this book as part of my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. You can find out more about my ongoing reading project here and see what books I’ve reviewed from this part of the world on my Focus on Western Australian page.

Australia, Author, Book review, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, Penguin, Publisher, Reading Projects, Robert Drewe, Setting, short stories

‘The Bodysurfers’ by Robert Drewe

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Fiction – paperback; Penguin; 176 pages; 2009.

Robert Drewe was born in Melbourne in 1943, grew up in Western Australia and became an award-winning journalist on the east coast before he turned his hand to fiction. The Bodysurfers, first published in 1983, is a collection of loosely connected short stories and I loved it.

There are 12 in total, each around 10 pages long, and they are mainly set in the coastal suburbs of Perth and Sydney, though there’s also a story set on the Californian coast. The beach is a central theme (surprise, surprise) and there are lush, vivid descriptions of the sandhills, the surf and the dangers that lurk within.

Intrigued as I am by the ocean, I am not an enthusiastic surf swimmer. […] Surf and tides turn malign too suddenly, waves dump you, sandbanks crumble in the current, undertows can catch you unawares. […] It isn’t the waves or the undertow that worry me when I do, however — it’s sharks. I imagine they’re everywhere. In every kelp patch, in the lip of every breaker, I sense a shark. Every shadow and submerged rock becomes one; the thin plume of spay on the edge of my vision is scant warning of its final lunge.

And while the stories are varied in style and point-of-view (some are third-person, others are first-person, and one — Sweetlip — is written in the style of a confidential report), the ways in which men navigate changed circumstances is a central focus. In these tales, men lose jobs, lose wives, lose their sense of purpose or pride.

In one story a prisoner adjusts to life outside by ogling bare-breasted women at the beach, in another a man has an affair with a woman whom he suspects is cheating on him.

In Shark Logic a man stages his own disappearance following financial irregularities at the school at which he was the headmaster and begins living a low-key invisible life by the sea;  in The Last Explorer an elderly man lying in his hospital bed recalls his past achievements — specifically crossing the continent from east to west in a 10-year-old Model T-Ford in the 1920s — and cringes when the nursing staff ask if he’s “done a wee this morning”.

The Lang family chronicles

And threaded throughout these various tales are recurring characters from three generations of the same family. We meet the Langs in the opening story, The Manageress and the Mirage, when three children — Annie, David and Max — are taken to a beachside hotel for their first Christmas dinner after their mother’s death. Their father, Rex, is keen to maintain certain festive traditions, but what he doesn’t tell them is that he is having an affair with the hotel manageress, a dark-haired woman in her 30s, who pays them too much attention and actually joins them for dinner.

She announced to me, ‘You do look like your father, Max’. She remarked on Annie’s pretty hair and on the importance of David looking after his new watch. Sportively, she donned a blue paper crown and looked at us over the rim of her champagne glass. As the plum pudding was being served she left the table and returned with gifts for us wrapped in gold paper — fountain pens for David and me, a doll for Annie. Surprised, we looked at Dad for confirmation. He showed little surprise at the gifts, however, only polite gratitude, entoning several times, ‘Very, very kind of you’.

In later stories, we meet Max and David as adults, navigating their own marital problems and affairs, and in another — named Eighty Per Cent Humidity — it’s David’s son Paul who plays a starring role:

On Paul Lang’s worst day since being extruded from the employment market he makes several bad discoveries. In ascending order of disruption and confusion rather than chronologically they are flat battery in his old Toyota, the lump on his penis and the lesbian love poem in his girlfriend’s handbag.

This loose collection of stories offers an insightful glimpse into the lives, attitudes and obsessions of white middle-class heterosexual Australian men from the mid-20th century to the early 1980s. They’re occasionally witty, sometimes terrifying and often focused on jealousy, love, lust or death.

The Bodysurfers has been adapted for film, television, radio and the theatre. I have seen none of them.

I read this book as part of my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. You can find out more about my ongoing reading project here and see what books I’ve reviewed from this part of the world on my Focus on Western Australian page.

Australia, Author, Book review, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, literary fiction, Night Parrot Press, Publisher, Reading Projects, Ros Thomas, Setting

‘How to Shame the Devil’ by Ros Thomas

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Fiction – paperback; Night Parrot Press; 183 pages; 2021.

Book groups are going to have a field day with this novel published by Night Parrot Press, a relatively new indie based here in Perth that focuses on “experimental forms and genres outside the mainstream”. (More about them here.)

Ros Thomas’ How to Shame the Devil caught me in its grip from the start. I laughed and tittered my way through the first 100 or so pages. Indeed, it gave me a warm glow. It felt upbeat, almost joyous, the kind of story you want to press into people’s hands with a “here, read this” message. (I actually did this, prematurely it turns out, on my Instagram account.)

But then something happens and the book takes on a distinctively different feel. Darker. More confronting. And I wasn’t sure I liked it very much anymore. It made me feel icky. And I didn’t believe the central character’s reaction was authentic.

So how do I write this review without giving away key plot spoilers? I also realise that if I mention the issue at the heart of this novel not only will it spoil the plot, it may also be triggering for some readers.

So forgive me if this all sounds a bit vague. I’m just going to try to give a general flavour of the story, which is largely set in a nursing home in the Perth suburb of Shenton Park.

Nursing home resident

The protagonist, Arthur Lambkin, is 78 and has Parkinson’s, though he seems quite capable and manages his condition with medication. He claims he didn’t want to burden his two daughters with his care, hence he moved into Ashton Grange, a salmon-pink care home located just a stone’s throw from the local hospital.

Art’s main interest is penning witty letters to the daily newspaper, his “connection to the world”. It’s like a competitive hobby for him, complete with rivals — Roy Windleburn of City Beach, Bob Herriot from Palymra and John Ferranti from Scarborough — who also write letters. He keeps an unofficial scorecard and gets upset when they get more letters published than he does. The letters, it has to be said, are hilarious:

To the editor

Sir,

As a lifelong vegetarian, I am heartily sick of vegans and the amount of attention being paid to them. Veganism has become a cult populated by food obsessives who spend their non-grazing hours denigrating omnivores for their choices. Possibly because their food tastes like dirt. I suggest they take a long hard look at the water they drink. That’s a fish’s home, you savages.

Yours,

Martin Drinkwater,
Shenton Park.

A ladies’ man

He also has an eye for the ladies, which sounds charming, to begin with, but there are little asides and comments which make you wonder if he is as innocent as he makes out.

This dichotomy is fleshed out via flashbacks that take us to Art’s childhood, early adulthood and his courtship of Hazel Hopkins, a nurse, who later becomes his wife and the mother of their two daughters.

From the outset, the marriage seems incompatible because they have different ideas about sex. Art wants it; Hazel doesn’t. Art also rails against Hazel’s desire to seek conformity, stability and routine.

Art thought conformity was deadening. He’d wanted a frenzy of living: to throw each day to the wind and see what landed. He wanted his wife to be recklessly in love with him. He wanted to be admired, to feel invincible, to share the tonic of wildness. He wanted danger and excitement and the chance to sacrifice himself for love.

He makes up for a dull home life by focusing on his career. He leaves his job as a hospital orderly, where he met Hazel, and becomes a hugely successful used car salesman at Motorama, which he transforms into “Perth’s number one Holden dealership”. Later, in the heyday of commercial radio, he takes a role as an advertising salesman for Sky FM, earning big bucks and making a name for himself.

A man’s world

Reading between the lines of How to Shame the Devil, the author cleverly highlights the misogyny at work and play during Art’s lifetime.

My major issue with this novel — again, without going into specifics — is that it’s written by a woman from a man’s (imagined) perspective and it doesn’t ring true (to me). I had a hard time swallowing Art’s ability to recall events from decades earlier and the ways in which he redeems himself. Other readers, I’m sure, will disagree. And this is why I reckon it would make a great title for book groups to discuss — and argue over.

I’m itching for other people to read it, so I can talk about it with them.

I read this book as part of my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. The author grew up in Perth and has worked in national and international current affairs for more than 20 years. You can find out more about my ongoing reading project here and see what books I’ve reviewed from this part of the world on my Focus on Western Australian page.