Book Review: The Hideout by Camilla Grebe

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The Hideout by Swedish noir and crime fiction writer Camilla Grebe is an intense, twisted and gripping story about crime, religion, parenting and death.

Manfred Olson young daughter is in a coma after a fall. When he is called in to investigate the death of a young man whose body washes up on a beach, his attention is divided between his job and wanting to be at his daughters bedside. When a second body is found wrapped in sheets and chains, his search intensifies.

It’s only afterwards that all the trivialities of a life grow, develop teeth and chase you through the night.

Eighteen year old Samual has to leave town in a hurry after getting caught up with a brutal drug ring when a deal goes wrong. He runs to a sleepy coastal town and finds a job working for Rachel as a live in care assistant to her disabled son Jonas. As Samual’s attraction for Rachel grows, his safety becomes more precarious.

It took me exactly ten days to fuck up my life.

This Scandanavian thriller is slow moving and atmospheric. The two separate plot lines of Manfred and Samual gradually converge with lots of red herrings to keep the reader on their toes and make you squirm.

Theatre review: Vibe Check

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Written by Greta Doell and directed by Stephanie Lee, Vibe check explores the exhilaration, uncertainty and awkwardness of casual dating and how that experience can heighten our personal neuroses like nothing else, bring all our insecurities to the fore and shake the most robust of individuals. We’ve all been there right? When our desire to connect turns us from confident adults into insecure weirdos. When not only are we trying to get to know a new lover, but navigate the multitude of options the ‘relationship menu’ offers – casual, open, monogamous, polyamorous, friends with benefits, it’s almost enough to make you wish you were asexual. But it is great fodder for a good laugh.

The setting is intimate and the props are minimal so Vibe Check is all about the characters and their personal journeys. Beth and Harry (Oscar Morphew and Freya Patience) are hip young self-aware new lovers in the honeymoon phase of their relationship exploring each other to see if their connection is a long term prospect. There is great chemistry between the actors. Beth is nervous, awkward and self-conscious. Harry is a confident, self assured inner city hipster tradie. The pair take the audience on their intimate journey as they talk about and dissect their feelings and preferences in minute detail to try and negotiate the type of relationship they want with a mix of discomfort and hilarity.

The Butterfly Club is a great venue with quirky intimate theatre spaces and a bar. If you had one of those nannas who collected kitch ornaments and artworks and crammed them all into her tiny terrace house, you will get the vibe.

Support a talented emerging play write and great acting talent. Vibe Check runs till 23rd July so grab a ticket for today or tomorrow from the Butterfly Club website so you don’t miss out.

Book review: The Boy from the Mish by Gary Lonesborough

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The Boy from the Mish is a queer First Nations bildungsroman fiction novel. This book is an important work as it represents diverse identities – both Aboriginal and queer. Young people who do not ‘fit’ the mainstream ideal need to see themselves in fiction as it helps to validate their lived experience. A lack of diverse representation not only influences how people see themselves but how they are seen (or not seen) by mainstream dominant cultures.

Go to your elders. You should ask them about your country and your totem. Because that is your identity. A blackfella with no identity is a lost blackfella. He don’t know where he belongs.

Individual and institutionalised racism, over-policing of Aboriginal youth, prejudice and lateral violence are confronted throughout this story told from the perspective of seventeen year old Aboriginal Jackson on a journey of self-discovery about who he is emotionally and sexually. On the cusp of adulthood and in his final year of high school, Jackson juggles a social life with his mates and his girlfriend with whom he has not had sex, but doing so hovers as an ever present expectation that he cannot meet.

I’m not too fucking drunk. I’m tipsy at best. And she isn’t ugly, I think she’s beautiful. Maybe my body is just broken, or maybe I’m destined to be an abstinent priest or something.

When he encounters fresh out of juvie Tomas, Jackson is unsettled by his attraction to the other young man and it triggers a change in how Jackson sees himself. The Boy from the Mish is a beautiful and heartwarming story that paints colourful insights into life in Aboriginal family homes, familial relationships and struggles, the emotionality of youth and the fears that make coming out difficult. It is also written in a way that shows white people as ‘the other’, which is refreshing.

If we don’t let ourselves be who we are, love who we are, where we come from, it’ll strangle ya until you can’t fight it no longer.

Book review: The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey

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The Animals at Lockwood Manor is a gothic queer historical fiction come love story set in London in 1939.

Awkward but determined Hetty Cartwright, an assistant at the history museum has to evacuate the museums sizeable taxidermy collection to a safe place called Lockwood Manor in the countryside. Lockwood turns out to house both attraction and danger.

This was their chosen sacrifice: where other owners of country houses would be preparing for evacuated children and babies, the Lockwood would receive a quiet menagerie

The taxidermied animals move around the house at night, a ghost lurks the hallways, the house staff are hostile, as is Major Lockwood who owns the property, and bugs start eating the taxidermy. However, Major Lockwood has a beautiful but emotionally unstable daughter Lucy and the two women develop a bond.

I had never been the sort of person who was first to offer sympathy, a handkerchief, a listening ear, to an acquaintance who looked distressed, but something about Lucy made me wish to be. I wanted to help her; I wanted to make her smile.

The story is a slow burn. Gently spooky, atmospheric and moody with plenty of creepy cliffhangers. Themes including misogyny, lesbian love, outcasts, colonisation, class, sexual violence and facing your fears. In was particularly fascinated by the taxidermy.

Comedy Review: Big Funny – Max Paton

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Max Paton’s show was unfortunately cancelled at the comedy festival. I was so glad he rescheduled Big Funny at The Motley Bauhaus – it‘s a hoot.

Max is a guy with a lot of energy and delivers fast paced absurd hilarity with a delightful innocence. There are no put downs or character assassination in this show. Instead you get a unique perspective on the world that is pure fun. There are plenty of jokes, character dress ups, creative use of audio, and absurd skits to set your inner child free.

From Jim from the gym, to a duck with a screwdriver penis, and a trip to Bunnings akin to a quest for the mighty sword, it’s a wild ride of tomfoolery that was delightfully refreshing. Get yourself to The Motley Bauhaus and support this young comedian. Show only runs till 9th July, so be quick.

The Motley Bauhaus is a cosy venue with comfy seats and good beer. After the show I recommend dropping into The Olive Jar just around the corner in Rathdowne Street for an authentic Italian meal followed by their singing chef. The combination of a good laugh with Max followed by a good feed will be a night to remember.

Book review: The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

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I listened to the audiobook of The Discomfort of Evening on my drive back to Melbourne from the Blue Mountains in NSW. The first thing that struck me was the amazing imagery Marieke Lucas Rijneveld uses in her debut novel. The second was that the word ‘discomfort’ in the title is understated. I was equally enthralled and disturbed by the novel.

It’s confusing, but grown-ups are often confusing because their heads work like a Tetris game and they have to arrange all their worries in the right place

Ten year old Jas wishes her brother Matthies would die instead of her rabbit. There are two reasons for this – she is not allowed to go ice-skating with him and thinks her dairy farming father has his eye on her pet rabbit for dinner. When her brother falls through the ice and dies, it sets up a massive internal conflict for Jas in an environment where the family is falling apart in the darkness of grief through a lens of devout faith. The unfolding drama is narrated by Jas and reported in an undramatic way, as if what is happening is ok, because she doesn’t know any better. This childlike interpretation adds to the unease for the reader/listener because it is so far from ok.

I don’t want to feel any sadness, I want action; something to pierce my days, like bursting a blister with a pin so that the pressure is eased

Each member of the remaining five in the family develop their own unique dysfunctional responses to the death of Matthies, the oldest son. Talking about his head is forbidden, having feelings is discouraged and everything is contextualised in oblique biblical interpretation.

I’m beginning to have more and more doubts about whether I find God nice enough to want to go and talk to Him. I’ve discovered that there are two ways of losing your belief: some people lose God when they find themselves; some people lose God when they lose themselves. I think I’ll belong to that second group.

The novel is told from the point of view of young Jas who is bewildered by the adult world and has developed distorted views due to the constraints of the families extreme religious beliefs. It is a book about grief, family disfunction, religion, and boundaries (or lack thereof) described in brutally vivid detail. Rijneveld’s writing is beautifully discomforting.

Diary of a Varuna writer residency

On By rlsmithwritingIn Random rants, Writing Life4 Comments

Sunday 12th June Day 1: Road Trip

Old mate and I went for a walk in the rain before I dropped her off with friends, packed up Pearl and turned her nose up the Hume toward Katoomba . I listened to the beautifully crafted Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri on my four hour drive to my overnight stop at Holbrook – best known for its resident Oberon-class submarine, a curious addition for a town 250km from the ocean. Apparently the towns namesake was a decorated wartime submarine captain.

Monday 13th June Day 2 : Varuna

Words: 29; walk: 3.34 km

I left sleepy Holbrook at 8am and drove north stopping only for petrol. Art Malik finished reading the Beekeeper of Aleppo just as I approached Katoomba.

After being shortlisted for a Varuna Fellowship in 2020, I was fortunate to be invited to a weeks residency. At the time I couldn’t go for obvious reasons (COVID lockdowns) and thought I’d lost the opportunity until I was contacted again earlier this year and offered a spot in June. I arrived as excited as a puppy at a picnic.

I unpacked my gear into the Bear Room overlooking the comings and goings of a shed labelled ‘office’ and a stand of what appeared to be either ghost or lemon scented gums. I wanted to shake off the hours of driving so headed out for a short walk in the direction of Cascade Falls. Very soon there were a lot of ‘oh wows’ going through my head as I turned corner after corner of spectacular scenery.

In the evening we gathered in the library room for introductions. Six writers – poets, and authors of young adult fiction, speculative fiction, gothic and crime fiction. It felt almost decadent to talk about little except writing over curries – something that rarely happens in non-writer company. The creative vibe was inspiring and I confess, my mind did keep slipping to how great a setting the house would be for a work of crime fiction…maybe one day.

It’s fair to say my creativity has been patchy of late. The novel I am working has been in progress for longer than I care to admit. I estimated I had about 20,000 words to finish the first draft and set myself a target to write 1,000 words in the morning, then permit myself a walk before returning to the desk to write more. I wanted to get cracking and make the most of this week.

Tuesday 14th June Day 3

Words: 2,408; walk: 4.78km

The book shelves in the Bear Room were conveniently lined with my genre – crime, suspense and thrillers…bwha…ha…haaa…and the outlook was excellent for ‘keeping an eye on things’…again great inspiration for a crime writer because we are nosy parkers. Though, I did select a tomb on Jung to prop up my laptop to symbolically inspire my subconscious.

The sun streamed through the window, deliciously warming despite the frost on the ground outside. I knocked out 1,200 words (in which I had to kill off one character) and then headed out for a walk. The Round Walking Track to Katoomba Falls takes you through lush rainforest, intermittently revealing spectacular views across the valley to the far off cliffs of the Katoomba escarpment, the Three Sisters and Wishes Leap. What a magical and inspiring location – both the house and the natural surrounds. I was definitely in my happy place.

After a couple of years of struggling to get time to write, it was so satisfying to see those words climb. We gathered by the fire in the evening and had another lovely meal and stimulating conversations. I felt quite blessed.

Wednesday 15th June Day 4

Words: 2,123; walk: 6.81km

Another perfect day dawned. The sun was shining and the air crisp. Words didn’t flow quite so smoothly this morning but I kept my bum planted till I hit 1,000 then headed out on my walk. I ambled 7km along the cliff walk to Echo Point Lookout and the Three Sisters then on towards Leura Falls to Carrington Park, cutting back through the town of Katoomba to Varuna. Walking alone through the forests was great inspiration as large parts of my novel are set in the forests of East Gippsland.

Thursday 16th June Day 5

Words: 970; walk 6.85 km

I was fidgety in the morning so set off on my walk a bit early and returned to pick up where I had left off the previous day to visit the Leura Falls. Then I crossed a creek (nearly fell in) and clambered up a little used goat track up a steep wooded hill to the east side of Katoomba and wandered back to Varuna through streets lined with tiny houses. It was not such a productive day with the external world intruding on my thoughts, but I still got a little done.

We writer residents started sharing readings in the evenings after dinner. So wonderful to hear what my comrades are working on in their rooms overlooking the garden.

Friday 17th June Day 6

Words: 1,852; walk 8.42km

In the morning I continued to feel distracted which interrupted my flow, flitting from one thought to another, unable to settle into writing. I was so close to finishing the first draft, but the last two chapters were eluding me even though I knew more or less what would happen. So I abandoned my computer and headed out. It was no meander. I went deep into the forest, and myself, to gaze up at the rock formations I had looked down upon yesterday.

As I descended the Furber steps to the sound of lyre birds in the undergrowth and the sight of plant life clinging to rock faces that would make mountain climbers squirm, I contemplated the ending to the story I was working on. On the path to Echo Point along the Federal Pass track I brushed past some of the biggest tree ferns I have ever seen and touched the giant Turpentine Tree (Syncarpia glomulifera).

It is hard not to weep at such grand beauty – the big and the small of it – when you know as a race we are hell bent on destroying it. Of course what goes down must come up and the fire in my thighs may have contributed to my tears. I wrote notes for the last page of the first draft of my second book on my phone when I stopped for a breather on the way back up the 1,000 metre ascent . When I reached to Varuna in my sweat soaked clothes I sat down and wrote almost 2,000 words in two hours!

Saturday 18th June Day 7

Words 972; walk 7.52 km

I typed THE END on my first draft at 11.27 am and headed out. My intension was an easy shortish walk as my calves were feeling the stair climbs from the previous day, but the beauty of the forest draws you in. I crossed town to Carrington Park and walked the Leura Cascades Fern Bower circuit via the Amphitheatre track, a 4.5km loop with a 1,000 metre drop in elevation and spectacular waterfalls and gorgeous scenic views of the Jamison Valley – which of course you have to climb out of again. I returned via the Prince Henry cliff walk and arrived back at Varuna 2.5 hours later, happily exhausted.

It is the last night for one of our group members, so we celebrated after dinner by sharing readings late into the night from the material we had been working on, admired authors and poets. We had all relaxed into one anothers company and started to open up. I felt privileged to have gotten to know this group of talented creatives a little.

Sunday 19th June Day 8

Scene inventory of chapters 1- 3; walk 6.42 km

I woke at dawn, made coffee and sat at my desk looking out over the winter garden with cool air filtering in the open window. There was frost on the ground but the sky was crystal blue. My calves and thighs were satisfyingly tired from all the walking, which is such an important part of my process. It was my last writing day and I started a scene inventory to begin analysing my draft and answering these questions:

  • are there any scenes missing?
  • any important scenes summarised rather than written in detail – think character development
  • left any plot elements out?
  • have I summarised any key moments which should be a scene?
  • have I put scenes in the wrong place?
  • Have I left some elements of scenes out?
  • Does the flow of the story work?
  • Are there any gaps?
  • Will readers follow the logic?

I stayed up high on my walk when I went out to give my legs a rest from stair climbing. I ambled along the back roads to Narrow Neck lookout and back via Cliff Drive and Prince Henry cliff walk. The five of us remaining at Varuna wandered into town and had a lovely meal at a pub in Katoomba.

Monday 20th June Day 9 – homeward bound

I awoke to a morning of mist and drizzle and realised how lucky I was to have a week of such fine weather in a mountain winter. I said my farewells and headed through the mountains and south back toward my way stop at Holbrook.

I discovered something new about Holbrook whilst I was at Varuna. A large submarine is not the towns only quirk. One of my companions was a speculative fiction writer and has been researching cryonics – the preserving of the human body and/or brain after death in liquid nitrogen for a future awakening when (if?) science works how to do it with memories and a sense of self intact. It turns out Australia’s first cryonics storage facility was recently built at Holbrook.

After arriving mid-afternoon I went for a walk along the main street and was struck by the unusual number of friendly older gentlemen getting around on mobility scooters. As with many country towns, Holbrook has a shrinking population and many empty shops on the main street, though her former glory can still be seen in the fading old buildings. The shops that remain have a distinctive 1950’s feel to them and there is a mustiness about the place. I did ask a couple of people about the cryonics centre and received pretty much the same response from all accompanied by a derisive smirk – that yes a cryonics facility had been built in the town but no one seemed to know where it was located.

What a wonderful week it has been with about 10,000 words written and 50km traversed through stunning landscapes. The writerly company and their words were exceptional, though what’s said a Varuna stays at Varuna. A heartfelt thanks to Varuna for the opportunity for a phenomenal, inspiring and nurturing week.

Tuesday 21st June – Arriving home a little changed

I left Holbrook early and drove straight through to Melbourne. The experience at Varuna has left me invigorated about my writing and determined to make an effort to carve out regular time for my creative writing life. I hope to get back there again sometime, but its nice to be home with my pal.

Photos: taken with iPhone SE (second generation)

Book Review: The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

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Aleppo in Syria is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is where this story begins. Nuri is a beekeeper who lived a peaceful life in Aleppo with his artist wife Afra and their son Sami until their lives were shattered by war. Sami is killed in a bomb blast whilst playing in the garden. The same blast renders Afra blind after seeing Sami die. Afra and Nuri remain in Aleppo longer than they should, not wanting to leave the memory of their young son. Eventually they are forced to go when it becomes apparent that Nuri’s life is at risk. The Beekeeper of Aleppo is the story of their journey fleeing through Turkey and Greece as they try to reach England where Nuri’s cousin who taught him about bees lives.

But in Syria there is a saying: inside the person you know, there is a person you do not know.

Christy Lefteri, herself the daughter of refugees, wrote the novel after spending a couple of years volunteering in a refugee centre in Athens. It is a story about the refugee journey and the experiences they endure in a state of high vulnerability. It touches on the effects of severe trauma, grief, child trafficking, ethnic cleansing, flight, asylum processes, seeking a new home when your own becomes uninhabitable – it is also a love story.

I wanted to set forth the idea that among profound, unspeakable loss, humans can still find love and light—and see one another.

As Nuri and Afra escape Syria, each are haunted in different ways by what they have seen and experienced. They become known to the reader as the people they were before the troubles, as well was who they have become as a result of flight from a war torn country. We witness their struggle to stay connected with one another and their dead son whilst they navigate their way to safety.

People are not like bees. We do not work together, we have no real sense of a greater good

The Beekeeper of Aleppo is written with compassion and hope. Whilst the characters experience great brutality, the story is also beautiful and a moving plea for greater humanity in our treatment of displaced people.

Where there are bees there are flowers, and wherever there are flowers there is new life and hope

Book Review: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

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If you are looking for a dark, discomforting psychological thriller to be disturbed by during this long cold winter, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn could be for you.

Everyone has a moment where life goes off the rails.

Camille Preaker escaped Wind Gap, a small town in Missouri, for a career as a journalist in Chicago. Her boss sends her back to Wind Gap, best known for its pig abattoir, to investigate the murder of a young girl. After Camille arrives in town the bodies start piling up.

A town so suffocating and small, you tripped over people you hated every day. People who knew things about you. It’s the kind of place that leaves a mark

Camille left Wind Gap for a reason – her family. Camille’s troubled mother comes from old money – she owns the hog farm, the towns primary source of revenue. Of her two sisters, one is dead and she can’t stand her precocious younger stepsister. Camille is a little complicated herself – she’s an addict (sex and alcohol) and she self-harms. She keeps her body covered to hide the words she has carved onto it over the years.

I always feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. She tended to me. She administrated me.

Suspense, plot twists, gore, dysfunction and the dark side of the female psyche…read it if you dare.

Book review: All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton

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It’s 1942 and Darwin is under siege from the Japanese. The mother of twelve year old gravedigger girl Molly Hook died as a result of a curse placed on her family by Longboat Bob whose gold was stolen by her grandfather. Molly lives with her hopeless alcoholic father and abusive uncle and digs graves in Hollow Wood Cemetery, and she believes her heart is turning to stone.

In all these years, he said, he was yet to come across a single gold nugget that brought any real happiness to the person who held it. Longcoat Bob said his family had found one large nugget long ago, centuries back, that resembled a human hand. And it became so coveted by members of his family that it caused fights between brother and sister, sister and mother, father and son. During one dispute an old woman struck her nephew with the gold hand. The nephew was struck dumb and his mental capacity was like a water hole that could never be more than half full after that. And the old woman was so ashamed by her actions that she begged Longcoat Bob’s grandfather, the oldest living member of the family, to hide the gold away in a place where no one else could find it. And any other gold nuggets that were found from that moment on Longcoat Bob’s grandfather reasoned, were best hidden away with it too.

Molly is best friends with a shovel and she speaks to the sky. The sky talks back and offers gifts to help her. While Darwin is being bombed she escapes on a quest to find Longcoat Bob and ask him to lift the curse on her family. She picks up travelling companions on her way – her wicked uncles beautiful actress girlfriend Greta, fleeing his clutches, and Yukio, a Japanese fighter pilot who falls from the sky.

The travellers dodge danger and the pursuit of a greedy, angry Uncle Aubrey as they follow a poetic map etched on a gold-panning dish left to Molly by her mother. Molly believes the map will lead her to Longcoat Bob.

Molly knows the secret to a long walk. Never think about the destination. Just think about the air in your lungs, the motion of your arms and legs. There is a rhythm to it, and once you have found it that rhythm can tick-tock through time forever.

All Our Shimmering Skies is Trent Dalton’s second novel. I reviewed his first, Boy Swallows Universe, in a previous blog. The two novels have a lot of parallels – the exploration of good and evil and Dalton’s fabulous sprinkle of magical realism. The protagonists of both stories are children living in the depths of intergenerational trauma amongst abusive and complicated adults but still manage to travel through life with a sense of hope and optimism despite their difficulties. All Our Shimmering Skies is part fable, part fairytale, a hero’s journey wildly imagined in the remote top end. Dalton’s writing is sublime and lyrical, and if you give yourself over to it, he will take you on a heartfelt magical journey.