Book Reviews

GOOD GRACE E very year in March, around the time International Women’s Day rolls around, I wish I lived in Adelaide. What better way to celebrate women and gender non-conforming folk than to engage with their books? And what better place to do that than at Adelaide Writers Week (5-10 March)? Some events to look out for include Briohny Doyle (Echolalia) and Rachel Yoder (Nightbitch) in their conversation Wild Motherhood; Veronica Gorrie talking to her Victorian Premier’s Literary Award-winning memoir Black and Blue, and 2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame and journalist Jess Hill (See What You Made Me Do) in conversation with festival director Jo Dyer in The Reckoning – a look at how the fight for justice and respect for women and victims-survivors has shaped the nation.

For those of you who are geographically challenged, worry not: a fantastic CURATED DOZEN selection is available to be streamed on a pay-what-you-can basis, and includes events with bestselling author Elif Shafak (The Island of Missing Trees), as well as our books feature subject for the fortnight, Amia Srinivasan, on International Women’s Day itself.

And if you’re in Melbourne later this month, get yourself along to Blak & Bright (17-20 March): a four-day First Nations literary showcase covering all genres and featuring a host of stand-out talent, including Alexis Wright, Tara June Winch, Melissa Lucashenko and Nayuka Gorrie. MF

THE ISLANDS EMILY BRUGMAN

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This debut novel about isolation, loneliness and the search for home, is salt-crusted and fresh. Emily Brugman writes with a sense of wonder and simplicity, weaving the story from its setting on the island of Little Rat, where most of the story takes place. It’s one of the Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia, where Brugman’s family lived and worked between 1959 and 1972. The story follows three generations of the Saari family, one of a small group of Finnish migrants who set up camp on Little Rat in the 1950s. It is an expansive intergenerational narrative, haunted by the ghosts and superstitions of Alva, a lonely matriarchal figure who longs to be seen by her husband. She is a survivor and a ghost, her desires made invisible by her failure to fit in. Deep and permanent scars cut through the Saari family, but this story isn’t a sad one. Instead, it speaks to themes of wonder and impermanence, finding beauty in the lingering, barely there

moments. BEC KAVANAGH

AUĒ BECKY MANAWATU

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Auē is defined as a cry, a howl – and auē ricochets between generations in Becky Manawatu’s debut. A bestseller and multi-award winner in New Zealand, Auē is a brutal novel of ferocious, damaging love. At its core, it is the story of two orphaned Māori brothers, the elder, Taukiri, leaving eight-year-old Ārama in the care of their aunt and uncle in rural Kaikōura. Legacies of violence and pain unfurl in the brothers’ alternating perspectives, from Ari witnessing the beatings inflicted on Aunty Kat by Uncle Stu, to Taukiri’s seemingly inexorable involvement with gang conflict as he collides with his father’s past. Trauma of so many kinds disquiets this remarkable novel, but Manawatu accomplishes a staggering feat in drawing out tenderness and compassion – including the touching friendship between Ari, neighbour Beth and her dog – against a dizzying kaleidoscope of violence. In Manawatu’s precise prose even the most ruthless acts are imbued with poetry. Auēis a complex and gripping read, exploring identity, race and redemption. DASHA MAIOROVA

COLD ENOUGH FOR SNOW JESSICA AU

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Jessica Au’s second novel, Cold Enough for Snow, is the thoughtful and multi-layered winner of the inaugural Novel Prize. The story centres a young woman who, in a moment of personal clarity, insists on an overseas trip with her mother. The two live in different cities and meet in Japan, spending their time playing tourist and chatting about inconsequential things. The daughter’s hope to reconnect with her mother doesn’t quite eventuate, and she spends much of the trip reflecting – on childhood memories, on her time at university, on the few things she does know about her mother. Au’s prose is gentle, wise and often astonishing: she creates an atmosphere dense with what’s left unsaid. She dives into the complex depths of mother-daughter relationships where she examines memory, identity, communication and migration. In Cold Enough for Snow, Au invites her readers to see the world as she does, and the result is tender and joyful. DANIELLE BAGNATO