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She thus begins a recruitment drive, but her efforts face hostility from locals and even her own dad. The stiffer the resistance, the more determined Bess becomes, and the closer she gets to secrets and tensions, festering resentments and the violence the small town has swept under the carpet. Darkness Runs Deep is an atmospheric rural crime novel that comes wrapped in the flag of Australian rules football. It probes the dark side of footy culture, while paying tribute to the unifying appeal of women kicking serious goals in the sport.
NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
A Thousand Wasted Sundays
Victoria Vanstone, Pantera, $34.99
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The opening sections of this memoir might have been subtitled: or how I got pregnant and gave up binge-drinking and drugs after starting at a ridiculously young age! Victoria Vanstone tells her story in parallel narratives, growing up in Britain and having a family in Australia, and always looking for the jokes in a jaunty way. Then the jokes run out. She’s 20, in Brighton, and ODs on Ecstasy (after tripping on acid at 15) and falls down a rabbit hole of depression and panic attacks. It’s not only a poignant part of this book but a dramatic moment in which she stares into a mirror and sees only the stranger of her alienated self staring back, captured in honest and atmospheric writing. In this sense, her story is also a cautionary tale. Years later, after a thousand hungover Sundays, she becomes a mother of three and goes on the wagon.
The Fast
John Oakes, Murdoch Books, $34.99
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When American publisher John Oakes turned 60, instead of tucking into birthday cake, he decided to go on a seven-day fast with his spouse. His record of the time encompasses prolonged excursions into philosophy, history and science – as well as the mental and physical effects of a diet of water, tea and broth. The result is a kind of meditation, the key theme of which is consumption and consumerism. To fast is to go against the whole production process, to step back from fullness and embrace emptiness. Which leads him into the paradoxes of fasting, its creative and destructive sides such as anorexia, as well as the politics of fasting through hunger strikes down through the ages. Along the way he introduces a diverse range of thinkers and writers, from Hippocrates to Sartre, all in engagingly crisp writing.
Kintsugi
Marie O’Rourke, Fremantle Press, $29.99
The informing metaphor running through this collection of what Marie O’Rourke calls “personal essays” (a sort of reflective memoir) is the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi, repairing broken pottery to give it new life.
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It’s both very effective and apt, for the theme of brokenness, such as a broken family, broken events and broken lives, is a constant throughout. She has an admirable lightness of touch in dealing with potentially bleak material, but is also thoughtful and emotionally engaging. When she evokes her five-year-old self, the “good girl” of the family, trying to please her aggressive father and, like a magician, conjure up a happy family, it is deeply moving. Likewise, when her child’s birthday cake doesn’t come up to her perfectionist standards and is thrown in the bin, it is a poignant moment. Hers is unaffected, often powerful writing.
Climate Politics in Oceania
Eds., Susan Harris Rimmer, Caitlin Byrne & Wesley Morgan, MUP, $40
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Scott Morrison may have called our Pacific nation neighbours “family”, but for a long time they might have felt like the neglected side of the family. After the wake-up call of Chinese overtures in the area, moves are now afoot to strengthen these ties. But, as this collection of essays argues, things have changed. Pacific nations have found their voices and the collective global clout they possess, putting pressure on Australia to step up. Key themes running through the study are Australia’s diminished reputation on climate change in the past 10 years, and the disjunction between our traditional defence strategies in the region and the urgent Pacific nations concerns about climate change, all requiring a re-set in our thinking. Largely written by academics these are specialist essays that address a paramount global issue through a regional lens.