Fiona McFarlane: The Night Guest

This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014

Fiona McFarlane's first novel The Night Guest has been long-listed for the Miles Franklin, Australia's premier literary award. My local library has it in the Crime section, which is a bit like putting Dostoyevsky there. Some bookshops had a similar issue about whether to put Peter Temple's Truth, the 2010 Winner, under
Literature.

Nevertheless, its climax and conclusion both quicken the pulse with elements of a classic thriller. This is despite their seeming inevitability.

We know from the opening lines (and the cover) that this is not going to be the usual trip:

Ruth woke at four in the morning and her blurry brain said, 'Tiger.' That was natural; she was dreaming. But there were nosies in the house, and as she woke she heard them.

Another tiger comes in human form but by taxi. Frida takes on the role of the seventy-five year-old's carer. It's the beginning of the novel's central relationship that swings between affection and suspicion, kindness and exploitation. With time Ruth comes to regard Frida as her defender but also as a threat.

Ruth's has been alone since her husband Harry died five years earlier. Her sons, Jeffrey and Phillip, show a passing interest in her welfare from afar. Like many elderly people, Ruth is increasingly trapped in her home both literally and figuratively. She is also trapped in her memories. Even the visit of Richard, a romantic blast from her youth in Fiji, is more about the past than her shaky future.

Enough potential spoilers for now.

Fiona's writing has clarity and fluency, not always common in contemporary fiction despite the pared prose. It is easy to be drawn in as its pace increases in the second half. Whilst the final elements of the Ruth's story are not unexpected, Fiona handles them sensitively and without melodrama.

A very well executed debut that deserves a prize or two.

Karen Foxlee: The Midnight Dress

This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014

Karen Foxlee was an author completely unknown to me. Why hadn’t I heard of her before stumbling across The Midnight Dress in my local library?

It’s one of the best reads from 2013. Reading her second novel makes Karen’s debut award-winning The Anatomy of Wings a must so I borrowed it while it was in [Watch this space!].

This story has ingredients that would normally be a turn off: the friendship of two 15-year-old schoolgirls in a small Queensland town; dressmaking; a harvest parade; elements of the gothic and the romantic (in both senses of the word) and the magical; an assortment of challenged adolescent and adult males; a mysterious old woman in a cluttered, ‘mildewy’ house.

On the other hand, the setting is an obvious attraction. The fictional town of Leonora is on the tropical coast of FNQ (Far North Queensland) where the sugarcane plantations are nestled between the palm-fringed bays and beaches and the mountain forests. Even the caravan park dares to be ‘Paradise’. The climate dominates, especially the wet season: ‘The rain comes in sudden exhausted sighs and spontaneous downpours…’

It is 1986, the year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. New girl Rose and local Pearl have innocence and naiveté that match their names, despite or perhaps because of baggage associated with their single-parent families. Their school suitors also lack street-wisdom. Motherless Rose, ‘who is not used to being touched.’ is suspicious of boys. Fatherless Pearl is more gullible. She’s a fan of pulp romance: “You know how in all those books you always end up loving the one you didn’t like in the beginning?”

Edie Baker, Rose’s mentor, is more suited to the nineteen century, even her name is somewhat archaic. [In the 1950s we all seemed to have an elderly relative living in rural Australia named Edie.] She lives with the legacy of a father scarred literally and figuratively by the First World War and a mother who passed on her dressmaking skills, the family home and a mountain retreat.

Foxlee uses a consistent structure with each chapter named after a stitch. There is a short passage using a subjective narrator who explores the central mystery - a missing girl. At times it addresses the reader directly with tantalising teasers such as the beginning sentence: ‘Will you forgive me if I tell you the ending?’, or later ‘What if they made a different decision right then? What if Rose could go backward?’

The other part of the chapter is a more detached sequential telling of the tale. Clues, red herrings and potential spoilers are scattered through both, resembling Agatha Christie at her best. Enough said about the plot.

Karen’s style is very modern, with the prose stripped of adjectives. At the same time it feels like it could have been written in the 1980s. The elegant simplicity of the language belies a strong poetic quality. [Grumpy old blogger alert!] Anyway, what’s not to enjoy about a story of relationships without smart phones and social media.

The thrill of the hunt is a major aspect but this book doesn’t really fit the crime genre. It is essentially about that cliché of all good novels, the human condition: friendship, rites of passage, sins of the fathers, the cruelty of fate.

We are asked, “What if everything could be changed?’ Why not it’s just a story. Yet this one ends on an affirmative note bringing us full circle: “And so it begins.”

Australian Women Writers: Hannah Kent's Burial Rites

This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013

Burial Rites: coming ready or not!

Hannah Kent's first novel Burial Rites has captured the imagination of potential readers in Australia with long waiting lists for reserve copies at local libraries. It is an ambitious and substantial offering set in an unlikely time and location.

We are taken to rural Iceland in 1829 where Agnes Magnusdottir awaits her execution for a double murder. One of the victims, Nathan Ketilsson, was her employer and lover at the time.

It is based on a true story that Hannah has researched in detail. If you're expecting a crime thriller, forget it. The unfolding of Agnes' part in the deaths certainly presents a mystery of sorts, though none of the revelations are particularly surprising or startling.

Her developing relationships are key to her transformation. She stays with district officer Jon Jonsson’s family, awaiting her fate. There she talks with a young assistant rector Toti whom she has requested as her spiritual advisor. In addition to his role as ‘confessor’, Jon's wife Margret and one of their two daughters Steina, help to bring Agnes out of herself.

We also get first person accounts of her life past and present. From these, we learn more about the factors that have driven both her inner-life and her working-life.

Agnes is literate and well-informed for a farm worker in a remote northern part of a very remote country. The rural setting plays an important part in the novel. After her degrading imprisonment, Agnes gradually revives as she resumes her life as a farmworker.

I feel drunk with summer and sunlight. I want to seize fistfuls of sky and eat them.

Of course, this stay is not meant to last. As summer slowly fades to autumn and finally the symbolic and literal winter, the landscape and the weather reinforce the harsh and dark nature of this tale.

Snow lay over the valley like linen, like a shroud waiting for the dead body of sky that slumped overhead.

Life in the miserable interiors of the farmhouses, where much of the story takes place, underscores the bleakness of their rustic existence.

On top of this, the illnesses of Margret and Toti are a pervasive reminder that violent death is not the real challenge for these communities. Death and religion are ever-present as the Icelandic Burial Hymn emphasizes:

O Grave, where is thy triumph?
O Death, where is thy sting?
Come, when thou wilt, and welcome!
Secure in Christ I sing.

But this is not a morality tale. Good (or god) does not necessarily trump evil. Redemption is far more elusive. We are left to wonder what it means to be ‘ready’ for our burial rites.

However, there is a villain in the person of district commissioner Bjorn Blondal, who could sit comfortably in judgment with the self-righteous in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. He is someone who “wants to set an example”. Blondal has much to protect as Toti’s visit to his property reveals.

The first two-thirds unfold slowly but it is worth the effort. Its powerful concluding chapters are both disturbing and uplifting.

Life and death – coming ready or not.

Australian Women Writers: Kathryn Fox's Skin and Bone

This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012

Kathryn Fox's Skin and Bone is a good choice for summer holiday reading if you're into crime thrillers. Her third book, published in 2007, is comfortable but not challenging.

Its young female detective Kate Farrer has most of the characteristics expected of the hero in this genre. She's recovering from a traumatic close-shave that has left demons that she'll have to face. She is a loner, both personally and professionally. And of course she has a new partner at work.

The cover promises a protagonist to rival a Cornwell or Reichs character. Farrer doesn't make a very enthusiastic silent witness, in fact she'd rather skip post-mortems of burnt bodies. There is plenty of forensic detail but none of the pathologists plays a critical or central role in the story, unlike her first two novels.

With regard to detail, it is disappointing that firefighters are referred to as fireman by the author.

Don't try to second-guess the plot too much, as much of it is a bit too predictable. Just go for the ride.

The style is Modern Fiction 101. Is it the lack of adjectives that makes it difficult to bring up a mental image of the main characters?

This novel would probably make a thoroughly watchable tele-movie where those aspects could be developed. In fact the book is more skeleton than skin and could have been fleshed out a bit more.

Australian Women Writers: Jaye Ford's Beyond Fear

This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012

Beyond Fear was Jaye Ford's first novel, published in 2011. It's promoted as a crime story but is essentially a psychological thriller.

The first part is tightly written and builds the suspense and tension very effectively. Jaye's style is minimalist with hardly an adjective or adverb crowding out the action. Her dialogue is also to the point and flows quite naturally.

The two protagonists Jodie and Matt are flawed by their respective violent histories. Much of the psychological exploration centres on their attempts to overcome their inner fears, hence the title.

The novel is too long for my tastes. Once the bad guys bring the inevitable shift from potential to real threat, there is one anti-climax after another without the anticipated resolution. The suspense is drawn out and there are just too many false finishes. But then this is not my preferred genre. The twists and turns clearly appeal to others as it has sold well and been translated into six languages.

It's a scenario that could make a successful movie with tight direction and editing.

Jaye made an short interview for her publisher Random House about writing the book:

There is an excerpt from Beyond Fear on her website.

Her latest offering is Scared Yet?, which has similar themes.