Ballarat Writers

Category: book review (Page 1 of 11)

Book review – The Writing Class, by Esther Campion

March 7, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Title: The Writing Class
Author: Esther Campion
Publisher: Hachette Australia, 2024; RRP: $32.99
Review: Rhonda Cotsell, Ballarat Writers Inc. Book Review Group

The Writing Class is a work that succeeds at what its title suggests. It is predominantly light reading but with moving and believable depths. This is possibly because, as a retired librarian, I am convinced of the power of the written word and the act of writing to, if not transform lives, then at least make life significantly easier or less difficult to negotiate. So I was interested in how the author would approach it. Also, as someone with a Ballarat and Creswick writing group history, I was pretty much in just from reading its title.

Irish Australian author Esther Campion has a background which includes a deep respect for the author Maeve Binchy, membership of a Tasmanian writing group, and degrees from the University College Cork and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. She also worked in adult education and has studied environmental science and zoology. The author has written three other novels and currently lives in Tasmania with family, her beloved chocolate labrador (or in her words, ‘labradorable’), a smoochy cat and several elderly horses.

The Writing Class covers writing from form filling to creative and autobiographical. Within that framework is an exploration of human relationships set within a range of familiar and current issues. Vivian, the class leader to be, is herself struggling to deal with a major life shock: after having accompanied her husband to Tasmania, she is abandoned by him. Her story is where The Writing Class begins, alone and humiliated and preparing reluctantly for an interview with a friend who is also the manager of the local library and who has received funding to establish a writing class.

Esther Campion interviewed about The Writing Class

@ Living Arts Canberra

Vivian has a significant teaching and writing background and it is through her eyes the narrative unfolds, but this soon changes as we are slowly introduced to the people her friend has cajoled or strongly encouraged into joining the class. Among these are people dealing with domestic violence, adult illiteracy, Long COVID, some for whom English is their second language, single parenthood, ageing and, scattered throughout, severe loss of confidence. Outside the writing class sessions, some also face forced labour, sexuality issues, and parenthood trials.

This book covers a lot of ground, creating convincing and engaging characters and managing to interweave all issues within the writing group setting in a matter-of-fact style, neither dramatising nor understating the emotional journeys of each of its characters. It fits the genre of popular literature, and kept me engaged. Particularly because the problems each character dealt with are familiar and current, ones we read about in the news, law reports or case studies.

Vivian is nervous about returning to teaching and not sure she is up to what the manager wants, and her anxiety, and how she organises each class, also plays an important role in the narrative. This is not done in a dry and instructional tone but through Vivian’s calculated strategies to develop students’ confidence as the class moves forward. We see the thinking beforehand, the application and the results. Since part of the task involves the completion of an anthology by the end of the course, a central part of her approach is also the building of a team, despite its being a motley group of people of different ages and histories who have never met before. Friendships form, initial negative reactions – fearful or distracted – are overcome between the walls of the classroom. This the author does expertly, in such a way as to make the reader feel part of the class itself.

I did have one quibble and that is towards the end where Vivian thinks, in relation to the group:

If the last few months had taught her anything, it was that life was better when you said yes.

Given the severity and complexity of the issues each individual member, including Vivian, brought to the class and had to deal with outside it, I found this a bit of a pink and fluffy simplification of what makes life better – overlaying what had been quite moving and informative, and cheapening it.

It also bypasses the fact that positive outcomes were inextricably linked to the high level of support and access to other resources of those within the group, and not just the fact that they said ‘yes’ to the new experience of being in a writing group.

I can hear howls of disapproval re the above as the book does not pretend to be a serious sociological analysis. However, every reader of a particular work is going to have a different response to it and, as one of its readers, I felt suddenly let down and not a little disappointed.

So, a mixed review. I definitely enjoyed it in the lead up to the conclusion, and could not put it down, wanting to know what would happen next with Vivian, how she ran the class, and what would unfold in the lives of her writing class members. It was an easy read and the author’s background in adult education was apparent in the sections where she designed the sessions, particularly where the intention was to create cohesion in the class to make the final step of completing an anthology. Most of all I enjoyed the class as individuals, each with their own particular personalities, life experiences, and approaches. The author created people here that I felt an emotional response to.

Potential readers? It fits the genre of general fiction, i.e., one that does not fit into a specific genre like romance or thriller; suitable for young and older adults. Those who like Australian settings would like it, and also those who like an easy and entertaining read which includes a believable background with relevant, current issues and recognisable characters.

Review copy provided by the publisher

Book review — Don’t Let the Forest In, by CG Drews

January 24, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Title: Don’t Let the Forest In
Author: CG Drews
Publisher: Hodder/Hachette, 2024; RRP $19.99
Review: Marian Chivers, January, 2025

CG Drews (no pronouns given) is the author of two previous novels, A Thousand Perfect Notes and The Boy Who Steals Houses. CG’s work has been translated into five languages and was nominated for the 2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal and won the 2020 CBCA Honour Award. According to the writer’s bio, CG lives in Australia, never sleeps and is forever buried under a pile of unread books.

The cover boasts that “not every fairy tale has a happy ending” and Don’t Let the Forest In fulfills the promise.

The story begins with Andrew reflecting that, “No one would want a heart like his. But he’d still cut it out and given it away.”

Andrew and his twin sister, Dove, are Australian and attend an American New England boarding school for the wealthy. Andrew writes twisted fairy tales for Thomas, “the boy with the hair like autumn leaves”. Thomas loves to draw Andrew’s monsters, but on their return to boarding school after the holidays, the police arrive to questions Thomas, as his parents have disappeared and Andrew notices he has blood on his sleeve.

Thomas is reluctant to talk about his family and Dove won’t talk to Andrew, who is slowly starving himself. In a bid to discover what is going on, Andrew follows Thomas into the forest and catches him fighting a monster from one of Andrew’s stories. Thomas’s drawings have come to life.

To protect the school’s inhabitants, the boys battle the creatures every night. But as their obsession with each other grows stronger, so do the monsters, and Andrew fears the only way to stop them might be to destroy their creator.

This tale will haunt you long after you finish it. There are twists in the plot that I can’t reveal here as it would spoil the story, but it is full of twisted fairy tales and monsters that will destroy your sleep. Along with the external threats there is a lot of internal angst and soul searching that should appeal to those who like their stories to leave them feeling uncomfortable and apprehensive.

As the author says in the acknowledgements at the end: “If you’ve turned the last page and are now frowning at the wall, then everything is as it should be.”

—

Marian Chivers has a lifelong interest in reading and writing with her work and study involving books from children’s literature to post graduate studies.

Ballarat Writers Inc. Book Review Group
Review copy provided by the publisher

Book review – White Noise, by Raelke Grimmer

January 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Title: White Noise
Author: Raelke Grimmer
Publisher: UWA Publishing, Australia, 2024; RRP: $26.99

White Noise is the debut of Dr Raelke Grimmer, Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at Charles Darwin University. She teaches creative writing and linguistics. White Noise was inspired by her own life.

The story is told using the voice of Emma, known as Em, who is autistic and who lives with her doctor father in Darwin.

The book opens with the grief of both father and daughter after the death of Emma’s mother three and a half years previously. Both are still struggling to come to terms with their loss and the transition into life without her.

That Emma is autistic is not stated directly, alluded to only in the blurb. The earliest reference I found was 17 pages in and then only referred to in a brief aside after a friend’s mother regrets she has forgotten Emma’s food sensitivities, putting dressing on her salad.

‘I forget all the time,’ Dad offers.
‘You do not,’ I counter. It’s true. Since my diagnosis, I don’t think he’s once forgotten to accommodate my preferences.

Although the father and daughter’s grief is an important theme in White Noise, I found the portrayal of Emma’s day-to-day autistic life particularly engrossing.

The main people in Emma’s life are her father, her best friend Summer, an assortment of other teenage friends, and Elliot, with whom she shares a budding attraction. Both Emma and the neurotypical Elliot sharing the usual ups and downs of first love as he learns this side of the girl he falls for.

Emma and her father share a warm and mutually supportive relationship. Her father’s raw grief taking the form of recurrent nightmares where he shouts loudly in his sleep and is unable to calm down until Em goes to comfort him. In return, her father is always there when on occasion Em shuts down or suffers meltdowns when overwhelmed. Always available yet simultaneously leaving her space to live her life on her own terms.

Emma and her best friend Summer enjoy the usual activities and experiences of teenage life in a comfortable, white, middle-class setting. They share the same circle of friends and, since both sets of parents were also friends, Emma and Summer are more like sisters, having known each other for most of their lives.

Her relationship with Summer goes through a difficult patch when Emma wins a sports scholarship that Summer had dearly wanted, exacerbated by the fact that Summer is also having problems at home. Her parents have three other children aged between one and five, the care of which too often falls on her despite the fact that, at 16, she needs space to live her own life. In one scene, a hurt and exasperated Summer cries that Emma’s autism means that the attention must always be on caring for her and not so much her friend who has difficulties of her own. I found this reference to how the demands of Em’s (perfectly justifiable) needs can sometimes require more from neurotypical friends than they have to give refreshingly real, with both girls’ needs recognised.

Initially I had a problem with the almost too good to be true depiction of Em’s life. She and her friends are all physically attractive and popular. The families are warm and supportive. Her friends like her as she is, and are willing to put their own lives on hold to assist when she struggles to cope. Professionals in her life such as her teachers and medical staff are all uniformly pleasant and helpful. But this is not a given in real life. Given the highly sensitive and vulnerable inner autistic world as depicted, the danger that could be done to a child or teenager where the family was uncaring and unsupportive and resources limited became increasingly apparent as I read.

While thinking about this, however, I came across an article where the author herself questions her right to write an article about female autism and how it is depicted on TV – voicing a concern whether writing the female autistic self may need a voice other than her own. She writes:

I wrote this piece with hesitation. I only ever wanted my diagnosis to be for myself to know myself. I’m not sure this this conversation needs another voice like mine: female, yes, and     autistic, yes, but also white, neurotypical passing, privileged.

However, she then goes on to credit her own diagnosis and understanding of herself to the autistic content creators of two TV shows she watched constantly, sharing her own experience to illustrate how it made it possible to get to that point herself. Any voice that can do that can be a voice in the wilderness, regardless of where or who it came from.

I owe my own voice and understanding of myself to Cromer and Hayden’s eloquence in  sharing so much of themselves as they brought Matilda and Quinni to the screen. Not to  mention the countless other content creators writers, activists and artists who provided information and solace on my diagnostic road in their infallible commitment to breaking down autistic stereotypes with unreserved honesty. Without these voices in popular culture, I would still be searching for this piece of my identity. [my bold] Until the stereotypical representations of autism shift to reflect the entirety of the spectrum, there will never be enough voices.

My only other concern, was that the depictions of Darwin lacked any indigenous Australian cultural presence or character despite the richly detailed descriptions of the Northern Territory landscape. It left a strange disconnect, as if it were a warm and tropical place anywhere.

There is an acknowledgement of country and reference to the traditional owners at the start but omitting them from the story itself, the ‘popular culture’ element, diluted its impact on the imagination, especially while simultaneously celebrating Darwin lavishly.

White Noise fits the genre of Young Adult novel, and suits readers from teenager and upwards. It would be helpful for those who might find something of themselves in Emma’s experiences as an autistic main character. I also think it might also be of value to neurotypical parents, friends, colleagues and acquaintances who may recognise themselves and others.

It is also a poignant sharing of grief and the time it takes to heal.

Reviewed by: Rhonda Cotsell

Ballarat Writers Inc. Book Review Group

Review copy provided by the publisher

Book review — Frankie, by Graham Norton

December 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Title: Frankie
Author: Graham Norton
Publisher: Coronet/Hachette, 2024; RRP $32.99

This is the third novel by Graham Norton I have read. Graham’s writing is easy to read. I find his character portrayals readily come to life. His stories benefit from his comedic eye for character observation. That ability to cut to the literal core, the touches of irony, and the truth we all know is there, but find hard to admit to.

The story opens with Damian meeting Frankie for the first time. Damian is a professional carer, Frankie is an elderly woman confined to her apartment. She is Damian’s latest caring assignment. The reader is also introduced to Nor, the third key character. Nor is short for Norah and is the lifelong friend of Frankie. It is Nor who has made the arrangements for a carer to be engaged.

The core of the book is Frankie’s life story. It is told via a series of reminiscences she shares with Damian during long wakeful nights. Norton presents the tales of Frankie’s life as individual chapters. The interplay between Damian and Frankie introduces each chapter.

Damian is gay and probably the most balanced character in the book, despite being young. Norton uses the relationship between Damian and Frankie to tie the story together. The book opens with Damian and closes with him. The way Damian engages with Frankie is a positive perspective on the relationship between the young and the old.

Graham Norton talks Frankie

with Lorraine

I suspect Norton enjoys exploring various relationship combinations and people that might be considered outside the social norm, whatever that is. There are several peripheral characters who are lesbian. This would appear to be important to the story given the consequences of Frankie’s involvement with this group. There is a senior member of the clergy who has a ‘virgin and whore complex’, and Frankie’s aunt and uncle are teetotal repressive religious puritans.

And what of Frankie? Heterosexual certainly. But, in my mind she symbolises tolerance, trust and hapless naivety. In a way she represents the betrayal of innocence. We see this, for example, in the way she is treated by her aunt and uncle, and with the ending of her marriage.

Frankie stumbles from one unfortunate calamity to another. Things happen to her, or around her: the loss of her parents, the meanness of her aunt and uncle, her ‘arranged’ marriage, the list goes on. It is as if Norton has taken to heart the writing rule of make your protagonist suffer. That is not to say Frankie’s life is all bad: there is adventure, passion, and friendship. But while parents, guardians, lovers and other friends die, betray or desert, Nor is there as the saving angel.

It is clear from early on in the story that Nor is attracted to Frankie. We never really get into the nature of that attraction. Nor’s love for Frankie is unrequited, certainly in any physical sense. Nor is lesbian, though in the little of her story we are given, she does marry.

Frankie’s life is interesting and the telling of it is intriguing for Damian, a young man finding his way in the world. I’m sure many will love this book and find the story enduring and heart-warming.

Reviewed by: Frank Thompson
Ballarat Writers Inc. Book Review Group
Review copy provided by the publisher

Book review — Rock and Tempest, by Patricia Collins

November 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Title: Rock and Tempest: Surviving Cyclone Tracy and Its Aftermath
Author: Patricia Collins
Publisher: Hachette Australia, 2024; RRP $34.99

I chose this book because, like many, the news of Cyclone Tracy hitting Darwin early Christmas Day 1974 left an indelible memory, but I knew little of what followed. Rock and Tempest has been written by someone who was there. So, I looked forward to finding out more.

Despite its title, Rock and Tempest: Surviving Cyclone Tracy and Its Aftermath is mostly about the role played by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), as experienced by Patricia Collins, who was there as a member of RAN’s non-combatant Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS).

In some areas the reportage is like a diary, personal and revealing, but interspersed with recollection couched in the severe and exact language of the military. The shifts between are sometimes abrupt and the military language, dry and reliant, assumed insider knowledge that I occasionally found frustrating. Despite this, Rock and Tempest held me riveted to the end.

We meet the author huddling in a wardrobe, the safest place she could find as all hell breaks loose over and around her. The roaring wind force is so great that rain is horizontal, but when the fire alarms sound she obediently climbs out of the wardrobe to follow the correct procedure of reporting it to the duty quartermaster gunner. Despite the unlikeliness of fire being the main danger. Sprawling and crashing down a corridor, she makes the call, but when returning to the wardrobe, she is knocked off her feet and skids backwards down the hall – grabbing at the louvres that line the walls – propelled by the violent strength of the water cascading in.

At first these sudden shifts from unpleasant experiences to strictly following procedure were disorientating. But it worked, giving a human face to the RAN’s rigorous adherence to process, but also including instances elsewhere reflecting the freer, practical spirit of the human species that created them. Like not handing in unbroken bottles of various alcoholic substances around destroyed homes, instead putting them to use, substituting for the lack of debriefing, in the get-togethers with friends and family after long emotionally and physically exhausting days. The author’s inclusion of details like these act to humanise the factual, report-like information the author provides of her naval colleagues’ activities. Some rules need to be refocussed.

Naval acronyms are used liberally unfortunately, with no glossary to assist readers. There is also much detailed description of daily duties, equipment specifications, rules and procedures sometimes seeming only loosely relevant to Darwin and the cyclone, though very relevant to those whose work revolved around them.

Patricia Collins interviewed at the ABC about Cyclone Tracy

In the days that follow the storm, events are leavened by other small, chatty details about the RAN’s domestic, personal and social lives. Though unashamedly self-congratulatory at times, it reads as well-earned pride. People emerge as hardworking, and committed to rescue and protect but still as fleshed-out individuals rather than faceless figures whose only identity is the military force to which they belong.

Disappointingly there is less information about how Darwinian civilians experienced Cyclone Tracy and its aftermath. On reflection, however, that is inevitable. What the author experiences is shaped by her role as a Wran, which would affect how her hours and days were filled after the cyclone had passed, and also what she would recall.

Despite this, civilians are not entirely absent. She writes,

There is no doubt that that local police and medical personnel did a phenomenal job in desperately tragic and chaotic conditions … despite their own losses, they fronted up for duty day after day. Their work was shattering.

Read more about the RAN”s involvement in the events of Cyclone Tracy

Scattered throughout Rock and Tempest are other snapshot-like references to what Darwin civilians endured. Her words and what she notices are stark and dramatic, creating unforgettable images despite their brevity.

Details like an uncertain death total because bodies were dropped off at medical points without details being taken and only those identified being counted, the large number of ‘transients’ camped on Mindil Beach directly in the path of the cyclone’s approach, blood hosed down in a hospital room and running down stairs, divers finding sunken pleasure cruisers by following the sharks, people unable to find shelter cut to pieces by flying sheets of tin.

This against a shared background of RAN and townspeople alike suffering endless searing heat and the overwhelming stench of Christmas Day seafood rotting in freezers and refrigerators. And the deaths of their own.

The author also speaks of the lack of recognition for what both RAN and WRANS personnel suffered, and the suffering that continued afterwards in their lives.

One man, sent to rally the troops, told the author later:

…he had found the staff in a bad way, pointing to one man sitting in a dark corner, whimpering gently. The best efforts … were futile in easing the man’s broken spirit.

and later,

Many people who went through the cyclone reached the limits of their physical and emotional strength sooner or later. Darwin city recovered and went on to grow and thrive. Many people did not.

There is more of this and it is worth reading to get that fuller picture of things that happened outside public view once the initial aftermath was dealt with, while higher-ups up received accolades and medals. Another story in itself. Despite the disenchantment underlying the ending, however, Patricia Collins was rightfully proud in what she and those she worked beside accomplished. She was glad she was there.

Rock and Tempest is one of those rare books that will haunt the reader long after the last page. For me it’s the Wran struggling through flooding waters to report fire alarms to a duty officer because no matter how ridiculous sometimes, an ability to adhere to rules defines that particular type of people who make the difference between success and failure when our worlds break apart.

Reviewed by: Rhonda Cotsell

Ballarat Writers Book Review Group

Review copy provided by the publisher

Book review – My Efficient Electric Home Handbook, by Tim Forcey

November 9, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Title: My Efficient Electric Home Handbook

Author: Tim Forcey

Publisher: Murdoch Books/Allen & Unwin, 2024;  RRP: $29.99

The Author

Tim Forcey is a home comfort and energy adviser, researcher and author. Tim grew up on a dairy farm before pursuing a career as a chemical engineer working around the globe in fossil fuels but left that industry after realising the climate crisis couldn’t wait for him to effect change from within. Following roles with government, the University of Melbourne, and not-for-profit organisations, Tim now thoroughly enjoys helping people make critical changes in their own homes.

The Book

As the front cover boldly states, this is a handbook for making your home energy efficient and electric. Given the rising energy costs, this title has got to be an attention getter. Indeed, for me, this book was an impulse buy. So, was it worth it?

In the introduction Tim outlines why we should aspire to live in an efficient electric home. Or as Tim says: this handbook shows how to stop burning stuff at home, whether that be fossil fuels such as gas or LPG, or even wood. His premise is that electrical options for heating, cooking and cooling are cheaper and more comfortable. Certainly, since I discovered induction cook tops (some time ago), I will never go back to gas for cooking.

Tim claims the key drivers for everything electric are money saved, a more comfortable home that is safer and healthier, and tackling the climate emergency. Even if you don’t agree with the last, the first three should be sufficiently motivating.

Part 1 of the book gives the reader an insight into Tim’s journey from son of a dairy farmer in America, through his employment in the petrochemical industry working for BHP in Melbourne, to an energy evangelist. There is also a summary of the evils of climate change, a little bit about Tim’s role as an energy adviser and some comments about the quality of Australian homes.

Tim spends the rest of the book talking about the opportunities for electrifying your home.

Tim Forcey interviewed for Australia’s Biggest Book Club

@ The Australia Institute

Tim’s writing style is clear, simple and easy to read. Much of it is based on Tim’s experience with his Melbourne residence, giving the book a personal feel. Tim also draws upon research and experience associated with the engineering of domestic energy consumption, and Melbourne University research.

There is a modest but adequate set of endnotes, and a good index is included.

I’m sure there would be other experts in this field who might argue with some of Tim’s opinions. A lot of the advice in this book is, I think, obvious, for example, eliminating draughts. However, I found most of the advice to be practical and achievable for the average household.

This is a great read for anyone setting out to tackle their home energy issues. Even if you are some ways down that path, it is still a good checklist.

This was the first time I saw a convincing statement of the benefits of reverse-cycle heat pump technology over ducted gas for home heating.  And considering my recent investment in heat pump technology, it was reassuring to see in My Efficient Electric Home Handbook evidence that my own unscientific observations are correct and therefore made the impulsivity of the book purchase worthwhile.

Reviewed by: Frank Thompson

Ballarat Writers Inc. Book Review Group

Book review – The Four, by Ellie Keel

October 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Title: The Four

Author: Ellie Keel

Publisher: HQ/Harper Collins, 2024; RRP: $32.99

Ellie Keel lives in London and The Four is her debut novel. Ellie has a background in producing and playwriting and is the founder director of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting which promotes gender equality for writers in the UK and Ireland.

This book is an intensely forthright and compelling read, a story about four teenagers who attend an elite boarding school in England for pre university admission. They are scholarship students, academically bright but subjected to the extreme ramifications of class bias and cruelty. Rose, the narrator, and Marta, her co-scholarship room, both suffered the loss of their mothers, Rose just twelve months earlier. Loyd and Sami also have backgrounds of  disadvantage and are determined to make the opportunity work for them.

The four young people have to quickly adjust to the routines and unspoken rules of an institution that is steeped in tradition, bullying and privilege. They learn who to trust and who to avoid but not until they have been subjected to cruel behaviour.

Listen to an audio preview of The Four

youtube

Prior to their arrival at High Realms, a young woman died on the school premises in circumstances surrounded in silence. The dead girl’s sister, Genevieve, is a prominent and particularly aggressive senior student leader who holds incredible power within the studentship. Then, Genevieve suffers a serious  accident and is hospitalised after an altercation with Marta and what follows becomes a suspenseful and excruciating story of how the four manage to support Marta’s extreme situation. Marta is missing. They are all at risk in many ways and yet they remain secretively loyal to their friend Marta whose mental health is seriously deteriorating.

The author has a writing style that complements the telling of psychological dilemmas and trauma. She cantilevers her work, allowing the reader to understand the inner thoughts of the characters, especially the narrator Rose.

…as my father and I approached High Realms in his cab, along the broad drive lined with stately plane trees, I’d felt as though my imagination was being coloured in, to a vividness and a grandeur that exceeded all my expectations … but as soon as we entered the bustling atrium with its dozens of portraits and towering staircase, my excitement had fallen away … I’d looked up and around; I’d seen the hundreds of students who exuded their confidence and beauty even more than their affluence, and I’d felt tiny …

Ellie Keel has created a powerful novel. She goes to the murkiest of situations and doesn’t try to shield the reader’s sensitivities. There are twists and turns when least expected and the suspense is all engaging. The Four is a dark book leaving the reader pondering on the events and almost dismissing them as too bizarre to be true, except the story doesn’t go away; it has relevance and truth in ways that cause a shiver to the spine.

Reviewed by: Heather Whitford Roche

Ballarat Writers Book Review Group, September 2024

Review book provided by the publisher

Book review – Colonial Adventure, by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver

October 12, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Title: Colonial Adventure

Authors: Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver

Publisher: Melbourne University Press, October 2024; RRP: $29.99

The term picaresque pops up a bit in Colonial Adventure, and similarly to the travelling adventurer of that particular style of yarn, our narrators here are passing through a series of locations as they lead a guided tour through the body of works exploring the colonial experience in pre-Federation Australia. Our guides here are Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Melbourne Ken Gelder and ARC Future Fellow at the University of Tasmania Rachael Weaver.

This is not Gelder and Weaver’s first expedition into this terrain, the pair having collaborated on three other titles in a similar vein, and their experience as academic researchers and collaborators provides a smooth, logically composed journey here. They keep the text accessible and kindly throw forwards and backwards to repeated references to help keep the reader up to speed without the flicking of pages.

There is a large body of work to cover – the end notes, bibliography and index run to about 60 of the 240 pages – and the authors do well to keep the tour moving across the most interesting or illustrative of examples, pausing in places to elaborate on the significant postcard moments such as the well-known William Buckley and Eliza Fraser. This pair feature in a chapter titled ‘Castaways and Cohabitants’, which delves into the presentation of their experience as dwellers with Aboriginal peoples as well as the aftermath of their experiences.

Not surprisingly given the book’s title, the ‘adventures’ here – whether journals, reportage/memoir, or fiction – are backgrounded in the way they reflect colonial thought and often the relationship between invader/occupier and First Nations people. The authors have gone to lengths to attempt to identify the names of Country on which events take place, thus acknowledging the diversity of First Nations cultures and the impact upon them. But the authors also note that ‘(c)olonial adventure was not always overtly in the service of empire’ and ‘could also transmit information about people and places never before seen; some of that information might even disturb the ideologies that colonisation relied on’.

The nationwide tour begins with explorers, with James Cook and William Dampier to the fore, and what is a foundational but fairly dry opening discussion on where such sanctioned escapades fall within the genre, before opening up to more exotic narratives of early encounters with New Holland. This is followed by four more chapters that trace the changing attitude to the land and its exploitation/occupation: ‘Transportation and Convict Adventures’, the previously mentioned ‘Castaway’, Bushrangers etc’, and ‘The Speculation of Colonisation’, which focuses on the planned settlement and opening up of the land as an economic endeavour. The latter takes in Lemurian fictions (based on lost or undiscovered civilisations), where First Nations peoples are again undermined by the ideal of a European or otherwise technologically advanced society occupying the inland of the country, with or without the fabled inland sea.

The idea of adventure is an element of discussion, wherein the picaresque style of story comes into play as a step in the evolution of the colonial experience: from explorers mapping the coastline to fictional and non-fictional roguish visitors enjoying outlandish adventures to brag about on their return home, to those here for the long haul, exploiting the natural resources in the hunt for wealth. The adventures extend to women and Aboriginal resistance fighters, too, and one of the interesting elements of these stories is how some bushrangers (both Black and white) occupied ‘liminal’ spaces in which they both opposed and supported the ruling power.

As mentioned, it’s a guide book, a starting place for researchers and the casually interested, a window seat offering an overview of the relationships between the new arrivals and the land and its people, revealing the mindset that justified terra nullius, murder and dispossession, and leaving the lingering sensation that these attitudes are not yet merely moments of history but still active currents at economic and socio-political levels.

Reviewed by: Jason Nahrung

Ballarat Writers Inc. Book Review Group

Review copy provided by the publisher

Book review — The Librarians of Rue de Picardie, by Janet Skeslien Charles

September 28, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Title: The Librarians of Rue de Picardie

Author: Janet Skeslien Charles

Publisher: Headline Publishing Group/Hachette, 2024; RRP $32.99

It is 1918 and Jessie Carson, a young American children’s librarian, is seconded from the New York Public Library (NYPL) to set up a library service 20 miles from the Front in war-torn France.

She is part of a highly select group of women chosen by Anne Morgan, daughter of  multimillionaire Pierpont Morgan, and her friend physician Anne Murray Dike, founding members of the American Committee for Devastated France (also known as CARD), established in 1918. Its mission was to assist French citizens – men, women and children – left behind when the German army retreated, struggling to survive amid the human and physical wreckage of post-war regional France.

Jessie’s particular role was to establish a library service for children, delivering the escape and joy that books and stories can give to children in even the ugliest of circumstances. She had to adjust: turning ambulances into bookmobiles, conducting storytime sessions on blankets on bare ground, bringing book materials for parents as well. In doing so she also often, predictably, faced opposition from others who considered this to be unimportant, her labour needed for more practical tasks.

CARD also provided seeds and agricultural equipment to re-establish food crops,  and medical  assistance for the streams of wounded coming from the Front, and Jessie and her helpers also shared in these and many other tasks.

Anne Morgan’s silent film promoting CARD’s work in France

the findlay galleries

In another time and place, 1987 in the NYPL, library worker and aspiring writer Wendy Peterson is working in the Remembrances Department in the basement, photographing delicate old records to preserve them for the future. One of her tasks is to make photocopies of a box of newsletters written by CARD and it is there she finds Jessie.

The book moves between both times seamlessly: Jessie experiencing the horrific reality of war, from unceasing bombings to the individual stories of the people they work to help, including a sudden, terrifying order to evacuate when the Germans suddenly advance towards them, and then immediately into the ravages of the Spanish flu, and the growth of  Wendy as researcher and writer as she becomes increasingly obsessed with uncovering Jessie’s story.

Through Wendy’s work decades later in Remembrances, we see the quiet world of recording, bearing witness from records and resources that would not have existed had not libraries collected, preserved and housed them. This is shown particularly clearly when Jessie suddenly disappears from the newsletters and Wendy is forced to search further afield.

Janet Skeslien Charles on The Paris Library

an interview @ the book report network

Wendy Peterson is also attending a writing class conducted by a caustic professor where students are required to read pieces of what they are working on. This is where Wendy shares her first efforts of writing Jessie’s story. His caustic feedback includes raising the dangers inherent in Wendy’s growing identification with her subject, and in the process giving some insight into the challenges of the unavoidably subjective responses to influencing the believability of how accurately she is representing the history of another person and an organisation that did really exist.

Aiming always for the truth, she is also aware of  her desire to honour an organisation that did undeniable good and whose existence she was shocked to discover seemed to have disappeared from the many stories of courage in wartime.

At one stage Wendy says, referring to the French women Jessie worked for and beside:

Little seems to be said about Frenchwomen during the war. It’s like they were never there. From the books I checked out, you might think that the entire French population was entirely made up of men. Yet while they were off fighting, wives, widows, mothers and daughters held the country together. Genteel women who hadn’t been allowed to work or study at university were now supposed to be nurses and doctors, teachers and farmers. Livestock and machinery had been commandeered for the war effort, so the women tilled the fields like oxen. They worked to provide for their families. Is anyone writing about them? (p 147)*

Who would this book please? Those who like to read either historical fiction or autofiction (fictionalised biography) –  the genre to which it belongs – and those interested in true stories based on solid research in war settings, but not just as a dry collection of facts. There are moments of lightness to please, two romances perhaps on the risky end of that genre, but not out of place as love happens on battlefields too. The details about WWI in the French countryside match what we see on TV today, showing what it is like for those returning when the war retreats, and the enormity of the task of rebuilding homes and lives – reminding us yet again that suffering is not limited to the uglier manifestations of mustard gas, torn bodies and blood-soaked soil.

This is the third in a trilogy of books by Skeslien Charles about actual librarians during WWI, including mega bestseller The Paris Library and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade. She has written for the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and is an international best-selling author whose work has been translated into 37 languages.

* This brings to mind Forgotten Warriors: Women on the Frontline, reviewed previously

Reviewed by: Rhonda Cotsell

Ballart Writers Inc. Book Review Group

Review copy provided by the publisher

Book review – The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wasteland, by Sarah Brooks

September 14, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Title: The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands

Author: Sarah Brooks

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Hachette, 2024; RRP: $34.99

The Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize is an annual award for manuscripts by unagented women writers from the UK and Ireland who have not previously had a novel published. Leeds-based academic Sarah Brooks won the prize in 2019 with a draft of The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands, a major turning point in her writing career that has delivered the goods.

Brooks has a background in speculative fiction, both in her studies and her writing, with a PhD examining Chinese ghost stories and short stories published in a range of spec fic magazines.

Her debut novel spans genres, much in the same way the railway central to the story spans a wasteland between Beijing and Moscow. Set in 1899, the story mixes a steampunk aesthetic with the fabulous landscape that would not be lost in a Jeff VanderMeer novel. One might read a touch of ecofiction in there too, as a theme is the way in which a fantastical wasteland appears to have been exacerbated if not spawned by technology, a wild environment that the Great Trans-Siberian Express seeks to defy with its mighty train.

Aboard we have passengers, crew and scientists, the story focusing on three: solo traveller Marya, with her mysterious past and First Class ticket; Weiwei, born and raised on the train; and naturalist Henry Grey, who has an ambition to present a breakthrough discovery from the journey at the Great Exhibition in Moscow, a celebration of the latest and greatest in knowledge.

This journey is clouded by a rumoured scandal on the previous, adding to the tension and thrill for those aboard, where fear of contamination by the chaos of the wasteland is ever-present. Just to look out the windows is to risk anxiety, breakdown or worse, for something has gone amiss and nature has become scary, dangerous and unpredictable.

Sarah Brooks interviewed about The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wasteland

@ the publishing post

Why ride the train? If you’re in First Class, it’s a talking point for those who have exhausted many of the other adventures money can buy; if you’re in Third, likely it’s the best of bad options. It’s also expedient for business and a fascination for the curious, such as Dr Grey, who sees an opportunity to redeem himself following a previous professional embarrassment.

Marya has her own reasons for being on board, ones that carry a high degree of risk, for amongst those on board are two representatives of the Trans-Siberia Company, akin to political officers of Communist Russia, tasked with ensuring the good reputation of the Company is not sullied by unfortunate events. For there have been events in the past, and a repeat is unthinkable. Commerce, profit and market confidence ride the rails, and these two ‘Crows’ will do what must be done to protect them.

For Weiwei, the train is home, its rhythms familiar and comforting, but this journey brings an event – and an enigmatic stranger – that will have her challenging her assumptions about this sealed world of steel and steam and those who run it.

Taking place over a little over three weeks, the story follows the three and a well-drawn supporting cast as the train makes its way towards Moscow.

The title is taken from a fictional guide that sets the tone for the story, a travelogue from which excerpts provide slices of background and set the mood: this is one of the great train trips of the world and one of the most dangerous. But not even the author, Rostov, could predict how this mighty rattler could threaten the stability of the world order.

As it turns out, Brooks’ balance of character and setting makes her a fine guide as the story picks up steam, arriving dead on time for its fateful conclusion. All aboard!

Reviewed by: Jason Nahrung

Ballarat Writers Book Review Group

Review copy supplied by the publisher

« Older posts

© 2025 Ballarat Writers

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑