A sharp, funny and tender portrayal of female friendship: ‘The Weekend’ by Charlotte Wood
The Weekend takes place, as you might expect, over a Christmas weekend during which three friends – Jude, Wendy and Adele – come together to clear out the coastal house of their friend Sylvie, who has died. They have been friends for decades and so their efforts are a final act of love for Sylvie. As the weekend progresses, though, their friendships, along with some deeply held beliefs, are tested.
The novel is told through alternating points of view interspersed with the memories of each of the three women. I loved this, because it allows the reader to get ‘into the head’ of all three main characters, and sometimes the same situation or event is recounted from alternate perspectives, giving real insight into their personalities. They are such different women, it seems miraculous that they could have become friends in the first place, let alone kept their connection over a long period of time. There is potent meaning associated with the minutiae of their lives: the food each one contributes to the weekend meals, their choice of (and attitude towards) clothing, the colour of nail polish and the like, become rich metaphors for the circumstances and approach to life of the characters. It is these differences that add tension, conflict and also laugh-out-loud moments to the narrative.
The author weaves in several contemporary issues as her characters move throughout their weekend together: homelessness amongst older single women, dwindling careers and perilous finances, attitudes of younger people towards ‘baby boomers’, dealing with dementia in failing parents, and conversely, the neglect and resentment women can experience from their adult children. There are astute observations on the physical, mental and emotional changes that occur with ageing:
It was true Wendy was further along the timeline of her life than she might prefer. This was obvious, and yet more and more she found, in place of urgency a kind of spongey spaciousness, commanding her to slow down.
The Weekend p207 (ebook version)A motif for the ageing process is Finn, Wendy’s very old dog which accompanies her. Finn is deaf, incontinent, and suffering from a form of doggy dementia, but Wendy loves him and cannot contemplate having him put down. The women all react to Finn’s presence in ways that describe their personalities. Finn is a perfect symbol of the differences between them but also of the inexorable processes involved in ageing.
The women snipe, argue and resent each other’s idiosyncrasies during their time together, as only people who have known and loved each other for many years can. Yet their deep bonds of friendship and shared experience are clear.
Charlotte Wood demonstrates her profound grasp of the power of language, with acute descriptions of the women and their inner thoughts, including this one, as Wendy imagines how lovemaking between two acquaintances might look:
Wendy imagines him and Sonia wrestling slowly on a bed; one insect carefully devouring another.
The Weekend p259 (ebook version)Or this:
Wendy looked around the street at the houses, the trees. At the world: the rich, tawdry, unjust, destroyed and beautiful world.
The Weekend p 355 (ebook version)This novel made me wince in recognition of all-too-common human foibles and at the trials we can subject our friends to. As a ‘woman of a certain age’, there was also recognition of some of the less celebrated aspects of growing older. There is pathos and sadness here, but also material that gave me satisfying belly-laughs and much that had me gasping at the beauty of the language.
The Weekend was published by Allen & Unwin in 2019.
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Harrowing yet ultimately hopeful: ‘Invisible Boys’ by Holden Sheppard
Holden Sheppard’s debut novel follows the struggles of three high school boys in the small Western Australian town of Geraldton, as they try to figure out the big things of life: who they are, where they belong, what family and friendships mean, and their sexuality. All three suspect they are gay and each has a different response , as they also try to navigate the various responses to homosexuality by the people around them.
I recall that during Australia’s sometimes fractious marriage equality debates, there were warnings from those working with young people, especially in rural and regional areas, that the divisiveness and stigma still attached to homosexuality would be worsened by the rancour around the campaign. They worried that it could cause further harm to young people already struggling with questions around their sexual identity. The events played out in Invisible Boys bring these concerns to life in a realistic way.
The author wrote in his Acknowledgements that each of the three main characters represented a part of himself. And yes, so vividly are they portrayed, the characters and events must surely have arisen from lived experience.
The three young protagonists are Zeke, a studious boy from a staunchly Italian Catholic family; Hammer, an athletic boy who dreams of becoming a star football player; and Charlie, a punk rocker who has no idea of where he fits – he only knows that it’s not in Geraldton, not in his Catholic high school, and certainly not in his neglectful, dismissive family. A fourth character, Matt, comes from a local farming family and plays an important role as the novel progresses.
The boys differ in the level of sympathy they engendered from me at the beginning of the novel. Hammer presents as a particularly repellent individual, the result of being raised in a toxic swill of extreme homophobia and sickening misogyny. As events unfold, there are glimpses of other facets of personality and what makes each boy behave the way they do, their fears and insecurities.
Here is Zeke, for example:Why am I so weak? Why do I cower to this? I know homosexuality is natural in the animal kingdom. I don’t think anyone should have fewer rights than anyone else. I don’t hate it in other people as much as I hate it in myself. And yet I fall in line with Father Mulroney’s condemnation.
Invisible Boys p507This quote, incidentally, is from a scene which also has some laugh-out-loud moments – Zeke’s excruciating enforced act of confession in church.
And here is Charlie:
I figured you’re allowed to tell other gay guys in the closet. It’s like mutually assured destruction. Either of you tells and it’s catastrophe, like a nuclear winter.
Invisible Boys p523Anyone who can remember their own pathway through the agonies and traps of adolescence will relate to the boys’ struggles. And the added layers of difficulty imposed by their families, friends and community, can only be viewed as absurd, unfair and entirely unnecessary. Why make someone’s path to adulthood harder than it needs to be?
The last word on this book belongs to its author:
…my teenage self, who, for a long time, didn’t want to be on this planet anymore because he was a gay bloke. Good on you for staying alive, you resilient bastard. Turns out you were good just the way you were.
Holden Sheppard, Acknowledgements in Invisible Boys.Invisible Boys was published by Fremantle Press in 2019. It was the recipient of the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award 2018 (even before publication!) and shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2020, as well as being a Notable Book in the 2020 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) and longlisted in the 2020 Indie Book Awards, among other accolades.
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A sobering look at recent history: ‘The White Girl’ by Tony Birch
I’m not sure when I realised that the practice of removing indigenous Australian children from their families (resulting in what is now known as the ‘Stolen Generations’ and the subject of the 2008 National Apology by then Prime Minister Keven Rudd) did not only happen way back in Australia’s history, but was still happening during my childhood in the 1960’s. The understanding that while I was growing up, safe and secure in a loving family, other children my age were in very different circumstances – grieving the loss of their parents and communities, frequently subjected to abuse and neglect in institutions charged with their care – appalled me, as I know it has many other Australians. This is not ‘history’ (locked in the pages of a text book about the past) but the lived experience of generations of Australian families.
The White Girl (Queensland University Press, 2019) is in part an exploration of this blot on Australia’s record. The reader experiences 1960’s rural Australian life through the eyes of Odette, a strong and loving grandmother to Sissy, who she has cared for since her daughter Lila left their town after giving birth to her baby. Odette does not know where Lila is and has had to get on with the task of raising a granddaughter, drawing on her considerable personal resources of inner strength, kindness and respect for her culture and ancestors.
But this was a time and place in which overt racism was part of the everyday for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, and Odette and Sissy experience the worst and the best of people as they go about their lives in their small community. The local policeman, Bill O’Shea, went to primary school with Odette and they were friends back then – but he is now an alcoholic reaching the end of his career and prefers to turn a blind eye to the goings-on in town, including the bullying and aggressive behaviour of Joe Kane and his eldest son Aaron, who takes against Odette and Sissy and threatens harm.
Then along comes a new police officer, Sergeant Lowe, who is determined to be the new broom the town needs and who takes seriously his responsibilities as the official guardian of the Aboriginal people in it. Unfortunately for Odette and Sissy, what this means is that he is set on removing Sissy from her grandmother’s care because in his view, an Aboriginal family is no place for a child to grow up, especially one who could ‘pass’ as white – like Sissy.
Matters are complicated by Odette’s health problems and she must find a way to protect Sissy from Lowe while dealing with her own uncertain future.
Along the way the reader is confronted by difficult truths about black/white relations at this time. For example, Lowe has a chart in his office on which he has listed each Aboriginal child in the local area, along with descriptions such as half-caste, quarter-caste and octoroon. Sissy is listed here, categorised as near white (p 115) Later, Odette reflects that:
…white people were fascinated with the skin colour of Aboriginal people, and what it might indicate…(She) understood that what this woman really wanted to know was how she’d inherited the white blood she carried and who it had come from. Odette didn’t know the answer to such questions. All she knew was that the women in her family loved all their children, regardless of the suffering and violence that had created them.
p 146Through Odette, Tony Birch suggests that the appalling and cruel behaviour exhibited by white people in authority over indigenous people, comes about because in order to carry out unjust government policies and laws, they needed to see Aboriginal people as ‘other’ and somehow at fault. Odette comments to her friend Jack:
Think if you were the police, Jack, knowing that one day you’d be told to go into a house and take kiddies away from their family. If you were to treat people with any decency, you couldn’t do that job. This fella giving us a hard time, he needs to be angry with us. Maybe even hate us. The only way they get by.
p 164The novel also deals with the so-called ‘exemption certificate’ that some Aboriginal people applied for. In essence, it was a document stating that they were no longer to be considered Aboriginal – which meant no longer subject to the laws and regulations governing every aspect of life for indigenous people under the Aboriginal Protection Act. Where you lived, if you were allowed to travel, who you might marry – these were all controlled by the relevant Protector or his delegates. Birch deals sensitively with what I am imagine has been a contested and difficult issue for many indigenous people, families and communities.
One of Odette’s friends answers Jack when he asks ‘What will we do, then?’ with the following:
What we’ve always done. Keep our heads down, think smart and get on the move again if the need comes.’
p 247What gets Odette through such difficulties are her recollections of a happy childhood, a loving marriage, and her connections to the natural world and the old people – her ancestors. She teaches Sissy about these things too, hoping that her granddaughter’s strong will and Odette’s love will guide her through life.
Each night, before Odette fell asleep, she asked the old people for help, that she would not lose Sissy as well.
p 42The White Girl is a beautiful book that deals sensitively with confronting issues of Australia’s past – and present.
For more information on Tony Birch and his books, see the UQP website.
#AussieAuthor20 When a sanctuary is threatened: ‘Bruny’ by Heather Rose
For everyone who is still awake.
Dedication by author in Bruny, published 2019 by Allen & UnwinThat dedication by the author is a good heads-up to what this novel is: part thriller, part study of family, part love letter to a place, and also, a manifesto against the onslaught of political and economic movements that support power, wealth and progress at any cost.
Set on Bruny Island, just off the Tasmanian coast near Hobart, the novel explores several themes. A main one is progress and its price, especially for small, relatively isolated communities such as those on the island, and Tasmania more generally. Astrid, the main character, is a Tasmanian with strong links to Bruny, who has established a life in New York and a career as a conflict resolution expert, working for the United Nations in trouble spots around the world. When a massive new bridge joining Bruny Island to the bigger island of Tasmania is blown up just before its completion, she is called on to help by her twin brother – who just happens to be the Premier of the state and leader of a conservative political party.
Astrid’s first task is to meet and talk with as many of the ‘stakeholders’ in the bridge project as possible – including the sizeable group of locals who are bitterly opposed to its construction. She muses that:
I was sure Tasmanians would resist…with everything they had, despite the economic advantages. Because to live on an island isn’t just a location. It’s a sense of belonging. It’s history and sacrifice. It’s a choice to be remote. It’s a kind of metaphor…
When you settle for Tassie, you’ve settled for less in some ways; less of what matters out there, more of what matters here.
p 254
and p567 (ebook version)What she discovers is much more complex than it appears, crossing international and government borders and quite a few surprises and shocks. To outline more of the plot would be a spoiler, so I won’t say any more about that here.
The time frame is set in the very near future so everything is recognisable – so much so that I had to remind myself that the novel was published last year, because there were several references to occurrences that mirrored very recent events within Australia or the wider world and which rang uncannily true: epidemics on cruise ships, scandals about government pork-barrelling, unprecedented natural disasters and weather events, to name a few.
The novel canvasses other themes along with the geopolitical ones. Relationships – intimate, sibling, parental, collegial, political – are all examined within the story of the island and its bridge. I especially loved the examination of family – what it means to belong, how we are always part of a family even if we have a life elsewhere. The character of Angus, Astrid’s elderly father who suffers from dementia, is both poignant and wise, though he can no longer communicate except in quotes from his beloved Shakespeare – quotes which are unerringly apt. My favourite is when he quotes Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown (from Henry IV Part 2) at the moment his children are discussing fraught political and public relations issues.
Other timely themes which emerge are to do with the rapid pace of technology and automation, and the moral choices that must be made even as the world drives forward towards new technologies and ways of production. For example:
The people who owned the robots, who employed the techies ignoring in-bound traffic, those who could afford high-protein, low-carb medical care and organic sex, they were going to be sitting pretty in their driverless cars. They would be the ones the car would save when it had to choose between the wellbeing of the driver and the life of the pedestrian crossing the street.
p 966This is Astrid’s musing, though I suspect it is the author’s viewpoint also. A few times, I did feel that the narrative veered into ‘telling’ (via Astrid’s thoughts and dialogue) which were mostly condemning of those in power – not that I disagreed with most of these views – just that they occasionally felt a little out of place in a novel.
I especially resonated with the word solistalgia which appears about a third of the way through – it apparently means ‘a deep melancholia for the assault the world is experiencing.’ (p465) I checked for this one in both Macquarie and Oxford Concise Dictionaries with no luck, though did find it on Wikipedia. It’s a great word, don’t you think? Earlier, Astrid thinks to herself that:
There ought to be a name for the kind of overwhelm that happens when you realise there are too many things to fight. If it’s not environment, then it’s human rights. If it’s not human rights, it’s women’s rights. Law and order. Gun control. Invasive species. Water pollution. Tax reform. Refugee policy. Education. Health care. The list is endless.
p442Perhaps solistalgia is the name she was looking for. For anyone who is or has been an activist on any or all of the issues listed above – well, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and melancholic about the tasks that still lie ahead.
This novel does not end on a melancholic note, though it is not a ‘happy ever after’ ending either. Instead, it examines what happens when a small group of people make a choice for what they believe to be the right reasons. And how individuals, families, and communities can continue to push on within the face of challenges from multiple sources. Bruny is a thought provoking read that does not have all the answers but certainly asks the right questions.