Immersive, engrossing fiction: ‘A Far-Flung Life’ by M.L. Stedman
Do you love a book you can fall into, immersing yourself into the place, time and people of the novel to the extent that you think about it in between reading and can’t wait to pick it up again?
I was delighted to find A Far-Flung Life just such a book.
Set in a remote sheep station in Western Australia, the story begins in the 1950s and concerns the MacBride family who have lived and farmed here for generations. Theirs is an ordinary story for the time and place – until it isn’t.
When a freak road accident kills two members of the family and seriously injures another, the whole family’s trajectory is changed forever. In the aftermath of the accident, Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide, as he is forced to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness. (From publisher’s website)
As with ML Stedman’s best-selling 2018 debut The Light Between Oceans, this novel examines what happens to ordinary people who are faced with extraordinary circumstances, and how fate, and the choices they make, both play a vital role in determining their futures.
The story’s events are narrated from the viewpoints of various major and some minor characters, showing how their thoughts, goals and fears affect their behaviour and the lives of those they are in relationship with. Every character felt real to me, their motivations driven by their own perspective on the worlds they inhabit.
Those worlds are beautifully depicted, especially the MacBride station, ‘Meredith Downs’, the vast landscapes surrounding it, and the small local town that services the farming communities. How do families and individuals cope with the isolation of these remote areas? What kinds of social lives do they conduct, and what inner lives do they lead? How are children educated, what do the day-to-day lives of sheep farmers look like? This novel answers these and many other questions in an immersive and engaging way.
There are some dark themes, to do with death, suicide, and family relationships; some readers might find some of the content challenging.
But, if you are able to try to understand why people make the choices they do in life, this novel will appeal. It deals sensitively with the results of trauma, both physical and moral/emotional. It’s a family saga, a coming-of-age story, a love story; a novel that poses several major moral quandaries and asks should we lay blame here or show compassion?
On any old outback property, you can see them, the skeletons of dreams. Houses long abandoned, windmills rusting, fence posts splintered, tank stands collapsed: every one of them was once a hopeful beginning…
Our lives come and go like these gold-rush towns. We arrive, we grow, we thrive, then we’re gone. Then the forgetting happens, and once-solid foundations are barely traces in the earth, from unguessable lives… In the end, we’re all looking for a place to ride out the storm of life. Among all these husks of houses and fossils of trees, we are like hermit crabs, borrowing a shelter for a time, and moving on.
A Far-Flung Life, loc 65 of 414 on ebook.I was engrossed in this big story right from it’s opening pages and although satisfied by the novel’s conclusion, I was sad to leave the MacBride family. Highly recommended.
A Far-Flung Life is published in March by Penguin Random House Australia.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a review copy.Sweet surprise: ‘The Dressmakers of Yarrandarrah Prison’ by Meredith Jaffe
I borrowed the audio version of this novel from my local library (shout-out to the wonderful folk at Blue Mountains Libraries and public libraries everywhere!)
I was not familiar with the author but looking for a light read to occupy my ears while doing those otherwise boring tasks around the house. An audiobook is perfect to help the chores get done and this one had such an intriguing title. I wasn’t sure what I’d find: romcom? cosy crime? (the setting is a prison, after all) or a tale of redemption?
The Dressmakers of Yarrandarrah Prison does have elements of all the above. Derek Brown is serving a prison term for embezzlement, and knows he has no chance of attending his daughter Debbie’s upcoming wedding. He’s not seen or spoken to Debbie in years and his ex-wife Lorraine is keen to keep it that way.
But Derek is part of the prison sewing group (called ‘BackTackers’), a program run by volunteer Jane, as a way to help inmates pass the hours in a productive way while making positive connections within the gaol. Someone hits on the idea of making a wedding dress for Derek to give his daughter, as a way of telling her how much he loves her.
Derek usually likes to keep a low profile, take no risks, keep his head down…but to his own astonishment, he eventually agrees to the plan and so the project begins.
What follows is a series of twists and turns even more complicated than a dress pattern. Local politics gets involved when the treasured prison library is threatened. A prison riot threatens everyone’s safety. Corruption, both inside and outside the prison walls, plays its part.
There are some wonderful characters, especially among Derek’s fellow inmates, each of whom has their own story, their reason for being in prison and their thoughts and hopes about their futures. They are all very believable, no angels certainly, but much more nuanced than those we might see on a typical TV show or movie about prisons and those who live and work there.
The wedding dress symbolises so much about life, relationships, new beginnings. It almost becomes a character in its own right as each person invests this project with meaning far beyond the original purpose.
Of course there are many obstacles and problems along the way and Derek comes to wish he’d never agreed to the plan in the first place. There are some real laugh-out-loud moments as well; the author has nailed some aspects of behaviour and manners that are very funny indeed. At times I winced and chuckled at the same time.
It’s a sweet book without being sugary, yet also manages to be quite thought-provoking.
In all, a perfect book to be lost in while doing chores!
The Dressmakers of Yarrandarrah Prison was published by HarperCollins in 2021.
Uncomfortable truths: ‘The Mother’ by Jane Caro
Jane Caro’s first work of fiction for adults channels the confusion and anger that so many Australians experience when confronted with news of the latest tragedy involving intimate partner/family violence and abuse. The community is forced to look at this when news breaks of a murder-suicide or the slaughter of a mother and her children by a controlling partner or ex-partner. These events happen all too frequently. During the ‘in between times’, people forget and resume their lives. This book tells the story of what can happen during those times, the events leading up to the next tragedy, and what happens afterward.
The Mother is told from the perspective of Miriam, a middle- aged woman grieving the recent death of her husband, whose daughter Allison has married after a whirlwind romance. Nick, a vet, appears to be a loving and considerate husband devoted to his new wife. There are some historical fractures in the mother-daughter relationship, and this is what Miriam is concerned about the most as she tries to support her daughter through the loss of her father, her marriage and the birth of two babies.
The novel starts off slowly. In retrospect, I see that this is a way of illustrating the development of an abusive relationship: the controls that start to be imposed by the abuser, sometimes too subtle for family, friends and even the victim to clearly identify. Often there will be an event which results in a sudden escalation of the type and frequency of abusive incidents and behaviours. All too often, as in Ally’s case in this story, it is the birth of a baby, meaning that the abuser increases their threats and controlling behaviour at precisely the time when the woman is at her most vulnerable. Brave, aren’t they, these abusers?
By the time Miriam realises the dreadful truth of her daughter’s marriage, things are very serious indeed. It’s not a plot spoiler to say that she decides to prepare herself – for what, she is not certain. The book opens with a prologue in which Miriam is at a gun shop, purchasing a weapon, though she cannot say what she plans to do with it.
Where this book excels is the portrayal of behaviour now called ‘coercive control’: the monitoring, gaslighting, stalking, financial, sexual and emotional control the abuser wields. It can at times be subtle and at others terrifyingly threatening and/or violent. It keeps the victim walking on proverbial eggshells, constantly wondering if it is she who is at fault, when the next blow up will happen, if that will be the time he finally kills her, or the children or pets.
Thankfully, there is much more awareness and understanding of this today, but in case anyone is wondering if the novel over-dramatises things, I’d suggest reading a few court transcripts or newspaper reports of cases. As with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, there is not a single thing in this novel that is not representative of real-life events. The creativity and energy of abusers to find ways in which to hurt or scare their victims is amazing.
The other strength of the book is the character of Miriam. Her doubts, fears, and grief are all beautifully portrayed. It is her love for her family that shines through. In this, I can vouch for its accuracy. My mother was the person who accompanied me to the Family Court during long three years in which the person who had most damaged me used the court as a way of hurting me once I was no longer in physical harm’s way. The best way of terrorising a mother is, indeed, through her children. A loving mother will do whatever she can to ensure the safety of her child or grandchild.
The Mother is written in accessible language and is a quick read, but at times, a confronting one. Thank you, Jane Caro, for writing a book that tells uncomfortable truths in such a relatable way.
The Mother was published by Allen& Unwin in March 2022.
The mistakes of youth: ‘Love and Virtue’ by Diana Reid
Are you a good person, or do you just look like one?
The question of what makes a ‘good person’ is explored from the perspectives of first year university students, in this contemporary novel by Sydney based writer, Diana Reid. Readers are invited to consider the hot-potato issues of consent, power and sex – a powder-keg mix if ever there was one.
If you can remember your late teen/early adult years, chances are there are at least a few cringe – or shame – inducing vignettes that you’d rather forget. Michaela is that age, living away from her Canberra home for the first time, and wanting to fit in somewhere. She is not an unquestioning acolyte, but rather interrogates her own experiences to the point of exhaustion. Her friendship with her college room neighbour Eve – wealthy, slender, white, and confidently opinionated – has her feeling out of depth, but she participates in the habitual, conditioned behaviours of young people in this environment – too much drinking, casual sex and drug use.
An occurrence during the university’s ‘O-week’ acts as an underlying pull for the narrative, providing conflict and some mystery. It is a narrative device – but it’s all too recognisable, and one that allows for layers of meaning and intent to ramp up the tension.
The novel shines a spotlight on the awful pressures on young people to conform; women endure harrowing personal humiliations but are expected to ‘take a joke’; young men are groomed for a life of adult privilege and power. Some speak out, others pretend none of it happens.
It’s embarrassing, as a reader, to recall the self absorption of youth and the mistakes that, in retrospect, seem inevitable. At times, the characters’ behaviours reminded me of the hopeless, unhappy role playing of the characters in Sally Rooney’s Normal People.
Similarly, this novel is definitely one for its time: the issues around what constitutes consent in sexual situations is currently being examined in ways not seen before, as are power dynamics and the role of prestigious university colleges in grooming new generations of (potentially) abusive, or at least complicit, men and women.
The prose is beautiful, evocative and very moving at times:
I dived down and counted twelve dolphin kicks, resurfacing close to the moored boat. My body was warmer for the movement, but the morning froze on my face. It was cold enough to remind me, in every tingling pore, that I was, first and foremost, a physical thing. Before thought or feeling or reason, I was a stretch of skin, a bag of flesh, for the ocean to cradle or drown with indifference.
Love and Virtue p160The author states that she wrote this manuscript – her first novel – during the 2020 Covid lockdown in Australia. It was an excellent use of her time and whilst I have no wish for similar lockdowns to happen again, I do look forward to reading more of her work.
Love and Virtue was published in 2021 by Ultimo Press.
The sweetness of friendships: ‘Birds of a Feather’ by Tricia Stringer
It’s good to branch out into a genre you don’t generally read much of, or an author not encountered before, and that’s what I’ve done with this contemporary fiction by Australian author Tricia Stringer.
Birds of a Feather is all about family and friendships, old and new. Set in fictional Wallaby Bay on South Australia’s Spencer Gulf, the story features three very different women. There is Eve, battling to maintain her independence after a crippling shoulder injury; her goddaughter Julia, struggling with suppressed grief and the sudden loss of her scientific research job; and Lucy, trying to be the best mother she can be to her two young children, and coping with the absence of her FIFO (Fly In Fly Out) husband.
The first part of the novel sets up the circumstances that bring these characters together: at first unwillingly, each feeling their way in a new situation, trying to overcome mistrust, hesitation and past hurts. Once the women are together, the story really gets going. Before that, there are hints and veiled references to their back stories, tensions, traumas and the circumstances that shaped each one, and it is fun to put their stories together as the novel goes along.
There are references to the Covid pandemic and the dilemmas faced by people like Lucy, an aged care worker, who must try to deal with an emotionally and physically draining experience while also worrying about her kids. It’s a very real scenario that brings home the additional challenges the pandemic introduced to already complicated lives.
The author captures the small town atmosphere beautifully: all the strengths of rural communities, along with the downsides that can accompany living in a place where everyone knows everybody else (and their business).
I found it soothing to be lost in the minutia of others’ lives, and the novel’s resolution was satisfying, even though some aspects felt a bit too tidy.
Birds of a Feather will be an enjoyable read for people who like to read character-based contemporary fiction about real-life struggles and challenges and the ways in which they can be overcome.
Birds of a Feather is published by HQ Fiction, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises, in December 2021.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.Fires, climate change, and activism : ‘Burnt Out’ by Victoria Brookman
From the setting and the themes of this novel, I was not surprised to read in Victoria Brookman’s bio that she ‘is an author, activist and academic. She lives with her family in the Blue Mountains, on Darug and Gundungurra country.’
Burnt Out is not the first and certainly won’t be the last novel that deals with Australia’s catastrophic Black Summer fires of 2019-2020, when huge swathes of forest (and townships) were destroyed by out of control bushfires after years of crippling drought. It was, in many ways, a turning point for ‘mainstream Australia’ – evidence that climate change was indeed increasing the severity (and frequency) of fires and extreme ‘weather events’.
As a fellow resident of the Blue Mountains, the opening scenes of Burnt Out conjured visceral and unpleasant memories of the fear, smoke and danger of that time. Cali, a writer whose life is already crumbling around her, shelters at the home of her neighbour, Spike, while fire consumes her house, her car, her work, and her cat.
Cali vents her rage at government and corporate inaction on climate change while in front of a TV camera and journalist. Her emotional and angry outburst goes viral and her words become the hashtag of the moment: #Fu**ingDoSomething.
She is homeless, cat-less, car-less, and her publisher is demanding that she produce the manuscript she is supposed to have been writing over the previous three years, an intended follow up for her first, best-selling novel. But Cali has nothing to give them – not, as she tells her agent, because it went in the fire, but because for three years her writing has dried up. On top of it all, her husband leaves her.
Then a rich business tycoon, handsome Arlo Richardson, steps in, offering her free accommodation in his beautiful Point Piper home, space and time to ‘re-write’ her non-existent novel. Cali, bewildered, crushed, and fearing the end of her writing career, accepts. Arlo offers her the chance of a lifetime: to be the public face of a new charitable foundation which will fund action on climate change.
What follows is a twisty tale in which do-nothing politicians, the divide between Australia’s uber-rich and the rest, greenwashing, social media, the news cycle, the publishing industry, celebrity influencers, are all examined and thoroughly skewered.
I didn’t find Cali an endearing character: I tend to get rather frustrated in a novel where the protagonist is perpetuating their own train wreck of a life, and her helplessness and inability to make her own decisions were maddening. This fortunately changes towards the end of the novel and I was able to cheer Cali on when she finally gets her mojo back.
To be fair, though, Cali’s inability to get her bearings is probably a very real manifestation of trauma: the transformation of familiar landscapes, an inability to get a grip on a new reality.
As they turned down Gumnut Close, she began to doubt her own abilities. Had she directed him to take the wrong street? Everything looked wrong. There was no blue weatherboard cottage here. No bush, no wall of overgrown lilly pillies. Frantic, she looked out her window, desperate to get her bearings.
Burnt Out p132Being a Blue Mountains gal, what I also enjoyed about this book were the frequent references to familiar places (and occasionally people). While fictionalised, there were enough details to spark a pleasant feeling of recognition and a smile.
Burnt Out is published by HarperCollins Publishers in January 2022.
My thanks to the publishers for an advanced reading copy to review.Australian Women Writers’ Challenge 2021: my Aussie reading year
This year I signed up to read at least 10 books by Australian women writers and review at least 6. On this score at least, I am an over-achiever! As at the beginning of September, I had read (and posted reviews for) 30 books by Aussie women. I think next year I’ll need to aim for the top level of AWW Challenge. It is not hard for me to read plenty of books by the wonderful and talented authors we have here in this country.
My 2021 reading ranged across multiple genres, from historical fiction (always a favourite, especially Australian history and stories featuring women in WWII, which is a theme that has become very popular in recent years); memoir, history, quite a few children’s books, true crime and crime fiction.
My standout reads by Aussie women so far for 2021?
These four spoke to me the loudest (the links are to my reviews):
People of the River by Grace Karskens (non-fiction, history) This one, by the way, recently won the Australian history prize as part of the NSW Premier’s History Awards.
The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer (historical fiction)
Ten Thousand Aftershocks by Michelle Tom
Of the children’s books, Night Ride into Danger by the marvellous Jackie French
Thank you to the wonderful Australian Women Writers’ Challenge for another year of fabulous reading. If you haven’t checked out the AWW website, be sure to have a look. You will find so many recommendations for new authors and books to discover.
Light & deadly by turns: ‘Digging Up Dirt’ by Pamela Hart
I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the strap line for this new novel by Australian author Pamela Hart, is a beauty:
‘Renovations are hell – and that’s before you find a body beneath the floorboards.’It neatly ties in two irresistible motifs for many readers: a who-done-it mystery and real estate / renovations – the last still endlessly fascinating for residents of Sydney, which is where the story is set.
Ms Hart is the author of many novels for children and adults covering several genres, including historical fiction, fantasy and non-fiction. This is her first foray into contemporary crime and I look forward to reading more about Poppy McGowan, who is an engaging, wryly humoured heroine with an interesting job (researcher for kids’ programs with ABC TV). Digging Up Dirt the first of what promises to be a series featuring Poppy.
She owns the house in Sydney’s inner west which is undergoing renovations at the start of the novel. To begin with she is dealing with a possible heritage order, due to the discovery of animal bones of potential historical significance, which has brought building work to a halt. Poppy’s previous job was in a museum so she is appropriately respectful of heritage issues… but she’s also worried that her renovations might be put on hold indefinitely while investigations into the bones continue.
Those concerns are compounded the following day, though, as investigations of altogether another kind are required – a murder enquiry, after the body of the archaeologist brought in to look at the bones is discovered in the same pit where the animal bones were discovered. Poppy begins her own bit of investigating, keen to see the matter brought to a close quickly so that her little house can be lived in sooner rather than later.
Political and religious organisations are involved because the murdered woman had been vying for pre-selection as a candidate for the Australian Family Party, a right-wing conservative organisation with strong ties to the Radiant Joy Church (possibly a thinly disguised version of an evangelical church frequented by a certain prime minister?) As Poppy digs deeper she realises that more than one person who knew the victim had a motive for wanting her gone.
Digging Up Dirt is essentially a light read, with elements of romantic comedy in the mix, though it does touch on some serious topics such as homophobia, sexism and the theft of Indigenous cultural materials. Poppy is smart and also acerbic at times, which makes for some apt barbs in the direction of politicians, and entitled, white, conservative and prosperous men – and women.
The great thing about sexism is that men who think women are stupider than they are truly believe it. So they are very, very reluctant to acknowledge that a woman may not be stupid. Thus far, I’d played to their expectations of a young woman who wasn’t really a reporter, and their own mindset predisposed them to believe I wasn’t a threat.
Digging Up Dirt p147Sydney based readers will enjoy the strong sense of the city’s environs invoked. I enjoyed reading about Poppy and can visualise this story made into a film or TV series. I’m sure I will be meeting Poppy again in the future.
Digging Up Dirt is published by HQ Fiction, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises in June 2021.
My thanks to the publishers for a copy to read and review.Another historical fiction gem for younger readers: ‘Night Ride into Danger’ by Jackie French
From Australia’s amazing Jackie French comes another book that tantalises with a gripping story while immersing readers in the sights, sounds, smells and figures from Australia’s past.
Night Ride into Danger is set in NSW’s Braidwood district in the 1870’s, the days of the iconic Cobb & Co coaches. In the first few paragraphs we are plunged into the world of young Jem and his widowed father, Paw, a skilled coach driver who takes Jem to ride beside him on the 14 hour journey from Braidwood to Goulburn.
We get a vivid sense of the coachmen’s work, the adventurousness as well as the hardships of his life, the way the coach looked, smelt and felt for the passengers who entrusted their lives to his care on the rutted, icy or flooded roads common at that time.
The passengers in this story – six of them – all have their reasons for choosing to take the faster but more dangerous night mail coach. Each of them has a different secret and the ways in which the secrets are gradually revealed make up the connecting spine of this story.
When Jem’s father is injured, Jem must take over as driver – a tall order for a youngster who has never driven a team of four horses at night on such a long journey. How Jem deals with this challenge and interacts with the six other people who travel with him, makes for an engaging tale.
The book includes many of the figures of Australian colonial legends: gold diggers, bushrangers, farmers, innkeepers and grooms. There are also women (often hidden in the annals of Australian folklore): dancers, cooks, farmers, as well as women travelling to a new country to be married, or giving birth in difficult circumstances. The author doesn’t avoid describing the racism inherent in white attitudes of the time, or the strictures of colonial society against Chinese immigrants, First Nations people, or unmarried mothers.
The characters are all active and engaging and the reader will cheer Jem on in his quest to arrive safely in time for both the mail and his passengers to meet the Goulburn train for Sydney.
Night Ride into Danger is guaranteed to be enjoyed by middle grade readers who like a mix of history, adventure and mystery.
Night Ride into Danger is published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in May 2021.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.A heady time: ‘Sisters of Freedom’ by Mary-Anne O’Connor
Historical fiction and romance author Mary-Anne O’Connor has set her latest novel in the first years of the twentieth century, a heady time in Australia as Federation joined the colonies into one nation, and Australian women – if only white women – looked forward to the campaign for women’s suffrage resulting in success.
The three Merriweather sisters in the novel have grown up in an enlightened home, with mother Harriet and father Albert supporters of rights for women and for indigenous Australians. Despite their shared convictions, they are otherwise very different: Frankie is passionate about the suffrage campaign and determined to stand for Parliament herself so that she can help make laws that give women more rights and freedoms. Aggie is happily married and longing for a baby, fearful that she and her husband will be unable to conceive a child of their own. She devotes her time to volunteer work at an orphanage, wanting in her own way to make a difference in the world. The youngest is Ivy, who loves beauty and art and hopes for nothing more than marriage to Patrick, a nice home and a family of her own.
Their lives take a dramatic turn on Ivy’s eighteenth birthday, when an accident on the river sees her rescued by Riley, a young man who makes a living with his supply boat up and down the tiny communities along the Hawkesbury – and some smuggling on the side. While she recovers from her injuries, Ivy sees a very different life in the wild river lands with the people who inhabit its secret coves and reaches. Her time with Riley and his sister Fiona will change her life – and that of her sisters – forever.
The water was clear at the edges but a murky olive colour further out, mysterious in its flow as it hid whatever creatures lived below the surface. It seemed appropriate that a deeply flowing, concealing river should be the main artery that pumped through this place…It held secrets, this river, and so did the people who lived along it.
Sisters of Freedom p183I grew up in the Hawkesbury Valley – upstream from the locations of this novel – and one of my standout reads of 2020 was Grace Karskens’ fabulous historical work People of the River – so I came to this book keen to read about the place and characters its author dreamed into existence. I very much enjoyed the descriptions of places and communities and the political and social milieu of the time; the references to significant people of the Australian suffrage movement (such as Vida Goldstein); and the way in which major national events played out in individual and family lives.
Ivy’s gradual realisation of the inequities faced by women of all classes, and the particular hardships of the poor, echo those of women in the 1970’s during what has is known as ‘second wave’ feminism. The shocking and absurd ideas about women expressed by some men in the early twentieth century are, sadly, not completely erased from twenty-first century Australia. The struggles of individual women to balance their desire for romance, family, companionship, with their own hopes and goals, is one which never seems to go away. In this way, Sisters of Freedom is a timely novel despite being set more than a hundred years ago.
There is a strong romance thread throughout, and I thought the resolution a little contrived (almost Shakespearian!) but actually quite fun as well. It’s nice to imagine a ‘happy ever after’ for characters, after all.
Sisters of Freedom will be enjoyed by readers who like some romance along with strong characters and evocative descriptions of real places, in times past.
Sisters of Freedom is published by HQ Fiction, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises, in April 2021.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
