22: Nothing Holds Back the Night by Delphine De Vigan

Nothing Holds Back the Night by Delphine De Vigan

Bloomsbury, London, August 2013.
Review published in The Townsville Eye, 9 November 2013.

‘What’s she done, what’s she done?’ Delphine De Vigan’s thoughtful exploration of her mother’s extraordinary life and death begins with this question on a Wednesday morning when she finds Lucile dead in her apartment. Lucile was a feted child model in 1950s Paris, third of nine children in a family that was at one time the subject of a television documentary showcasing the ‘perfect family’. Common sense tells us there is no such thing, and De Vigan does not don rose-coloured glasses for her mother’s story. She interviewed Lucile’s surviving brothers and sisters and listened to her grandfather’s taped history to make sense of the family, to discover how they shaped her mother’s life. De Vigan draws out stories of an overbearing patriarch, accidental deaths, acrimonious divorce, painful accusations, terminal cancer, and suicide. Lucile’s adult life was punctuated with delirium, despair and hospitalisation which had its inevitable impacts on Delphine and her sister Manon’s lives. Lucile was a singular woman; elusive, glamorous, a daughter, a sister, a mother. Nothing Holds Back the Night stands as
De Vigan’s tribute to Lucile.

Verdict: Tragic

21: Tarcutta Wake by Josephine Rowe

Tarcutta Wake by Josephine Rowe

University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2012

Short stories

Review published in ArtGaze Magazine online, September 2013

‘I am sorry that it hurt you. But even so, it was something I carried around with me. Something folded small that I could take out and look at whenever I wanted to.’
(p. 95)

Josephine Rowe is a young Melbourne writer whose work has been published in the prestigious Meanjin, Overland and The Best Australian Stories. Tarcutta Wake is a slim volume of 104 pages gracefully scattering vignettes of people’s lives across twenty-five stories, much as Esther does with Robin’s ashes in the title story. So many characters’ lives folded small – some explored in a paragraph, others in a handful of pages.

Rowe dignifies the composite parts of a person’s life. She draws out the parts to place before us as offerings. By savouring these stories, we might find ourselves reflected in them.  Are we too running away, moving house, farewelling a lover, doing something unexpected, grieving losses? Characters move on, leaving others behind, but Rowe’s dignity as a storyteller lifts us, like the neighbour’s singing –

‘in the mornings we would sometimes hear him singing, and his voice thrummed through all the busted hot water systems and dirty sheets and disconnection notices, through the discarded needles and the places where our bicycles used to be... his voice made these things better than they were.’ (p. 25)

The stories unfold to reveal a myriad of characters who observe life going on around them, placing the reader – as observer – unobtrusively on the edge of understanding. We sit on the bed in room 17 with Eli, the first narrator, and beside her in the car as she takes us on the run to Brisbane. Her mother is driving, leaving Dad and Victoria behind. We’re with Laith as he climbs out of the tank, and with him as he sees his son growing up in Facebook photos. We’re behind the camera that observes the ‘nicotine stains, scars, tattoos’ of participants’ hands in an art project. We meet the taxidermist’s wife, the distant lover, the elderly doorman who dances with all the girls like it was a ‘different time and place’, and an artist’s model. We don’t meet Sonja sitting alone in her apartment, or the singing man, or Thao, but we are told a little of their stories and know that they meant something to someone.

For such a small volume, its weight is something to be carried around with you. There are many readers who scorn short stories because they want the full meat of a novel - a saga and an adventure - they want to be told what happens. I think snapshots and the gathering of a few fine words can be as satisfying when presented by such a strong writer. It is then that your imagination takes flight.

Josephine’s online site:  josephinerowe.com

I'm planning a short short story reading challenge. Join me?

10 deadly stories

In 2012 I participated in ALIA and TAFE NSW's Promote Client Access to Literature subject as part of National Year of Reading. One assessment was to create an annotated bibliography on a blog (or - a blog reading map) based on a UN calendar event - I chose the International Day of the World's Indigenous People. I highlighted 10 deadly stories from Indigenous people in Australia, New Zealand and the US in adult and young adult fiction, and creative nonfiction : http://10deadlystories.blogspot.com.au/.
I am grateful to Dr Anita Heiss for her Black Books list which was my starting point http://anitaheissblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/anitas-bbc-black-book-choice-reading.html. 

twenty - banksy by will ellsworth-jones

Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall by Will Ellsworth-Jones
Published 2012
Review available in ArtGaze magazine December 2012

‘I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.’ – Banksy.

A bit of a misleading book title; what made you think you were going to meet the real Banksy, see what he looks like, read about his childhood? This book is not shelved in the biography section, and yet it is one of the most interesting unauthorised biographies I have read. Arguably the most recognisable name in graffiti, Banksy appears to have grown up rough in Bristol and early on chose the anonymity for which he is known (or not known). It’s an ironic ploy that has worked for and against him ever since.
Ellsworth-Jones asked, ‘how important is Banksy in the whole urban art world?’ and discovered that Banksy ‘kick-started the market. He’s a household name. Everyone’s grandma knows Banksy.’

This book reveals that everyone’s grandma actually knows Banksy’s art. If you disregard the mystery surrounding him; the interviews in shadow, the disguised voice, the loyalty and closed-shop of his team Pest Control, and the fact that nobody’s saying who Banksy really is, what you have left is the art. The pictures on walls; the stencils, the wry social comment – it all works well with an artist not desperate for his fifteen minutes. Without a preconceived perception of the artist as a man, the art can speak for itself. 

I found myself relating to the author while reading. He’s not involved in the art world except for having an artistic appreciation for location-based art. He didn’t meet Banksy, and only owns a knock-off stencil image despite waiting patiently online while others queued overnight. Whatever your knowledge of or interest in Banksy being labelled a street artist, a vandal, a national treasure or a sell-out, you’ll find this the strongest biography of Banksy you’re going to get to read unless his mother writes an exposé of his early years. Does he even have a mother? Yes, there’s a little about her and a revealing incident from Banksy’s pre-teen years, but no happy family photographs. There are few photographs of any of the pieces referred to in the book, but it’s easy enough to go online to find them. Or go on a cross-country trek as the author did using a guide book to find the Banksy image in its natural habitat.

This contextual element of urban art is explored intelligently by the author. Although Banksy graffities on surfaces that he does not own as is the nature of the art, his celebrity drives people to protect his pieces with perspex or have the wall for their own. Meanwhile his contemporaries are fined or jailed and their pieces whitewashed. Contradictory viewpoints are explored with Banksy saying that ‘public reaction is what supplies meaning and value’, and @ashlee arguing that ‘the point of street art is for it to exist in its natural environment. It is by nature temporary.’ Without the urban desolation of its Detroit factory yard environment, does his ‘I remember when all this was trees’ piece have as much impact sitting in a gallery?

Banksy has an uneasy relationship with galleries. After having snuck some detourned paintings into The Tate, he has now exhibited at Bristol’s Gallery and created a high-price market for street art. Banksy squared this with the audience and himself with Pest Control verifications and posting online ‘For the sake of keeping street art where it belongs I’d encourage people not to buy anything by anybody unless it was created for sale in the first place’. When celebrities and millionaires collect Banksy’s ‘for sale’ artwork, both his personal wealth and popularity increase. Banksy may have been feeling a little hypocritical but felt like he had an important message to convey about the absurdity of paying large sums of money for street art taken out of its context. His ‘I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit’ print may have referenced the 25 million pound sale of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, but it is also confronting (or amusing depending on your viewpoint). A commenter on his website noted this piece was the ultimate ‘portion of irony eating itself’. Whether street art should only be accessible to those who can appreciate it in situ, or however Banksy makes his money, I am grateful to him for opening my heart to street art.

Banksy’s site www.banksy.co.uk/index.html

Street art images below by me on instagram

nineteen - Death Cure by awesometastic guest reviewer

Death Cure by James Dashner
Chicken House (2012)
Review published July 2012 in the local newspaper

'WICKED is good' Teresa said out of the blue, as if talking to herself... "WICKED is good" she repeated, much louder, turning her seat  to meet the others' gazes.
Death Cure is the gripping finale to the thrilling Maze Runner Trilogy. It dives deeper into the mind of Thomas, who feels angry as Teresa seems to pull away from him and joins WICKED's side. Thomas and the group are faced with more problems as they are classified as 'Munies' and the people on the streets hate them. Thomas become closer to Brenda and they continue to develop a great friendship. Thomas and the others like Newt, Sonya, Minho, Frypan and Janson always get into to tough spots but everything gets better in the end.
The whole series is incredible. 
For the lovers of the Hunger Games and the Gone series, this book is a must read. It is full of unpredictable twists and turns that you never saw coming. I would recommend this book to anyone and i greatly enjoyed reading this book.  Death Cure is wonderfully written and throughout the whole book i was left asking the question: is WICKED good?

Review by awesometastic young person!!

eighteen: Black Glass by Meg Mundell

Black Glass 

by Meg Mundell
Scribe Publications (2011)
Review published February 2012 at M/C Reviews 
Meg's response on Facebook : Alison, I think I love you...thanks Ramon for pointing me to this ace review


.. the story is fragmented, like broken glass...

If fiction reveals our cultural journeys, speculative fiction confronts us with dystopian visions of where we could be heading. Debut Australian novelist Meg Mundell shines with her layering of Big Brotherly surveillance and alienated citizenry over the culturally-rich first-world city of Melbourne.

Tally and Grace are sisters seduced by the mythology of the big city. After years of being continuously covertly relocated across the Regions, the sisters are plunged into homelessness when their father’s meth lab explodes. This first explosion rips the sisters’ world apart. Physically apart at the time, they escape separately to the city, each believing the other dead, but holding on to the hope that has long sustained them.

Black glass is a barrier, a means for one group to spy on another. It is the concealed surveillance cameras, the one-way glass at the casino and the health club, the reflective glass of the tall inner-city buildings. It is a thematic device used to effect in Black Glass. The story is fragmented, like broken glass, in its narrative viewpoint shifts, its fragile relationships, and its subversive government-monitoring style headings.

Mundell’s rich use of fragmentation in scene, dialogue and form evokes strong feelings of paranoia and emptiness. Characters are inter-related, but must chart their courses alone. The sisters’ separate entries to the city are documented, ironically as they are ‘undocs’; unverified and unregistered citizens. They spend the majority of the story apart, but are determined to find one another again. The odds, in this disturbing quest novel, are against them. 

Decadent, dirty and dangerous, Melbourne emerges as a shady character in a future-shocked world. It’s all ‘thick coils of heat’ and ‘filthy cracks’. Its ‘tea-brown’ (47) river is choked with plastic, its fountains dry. Streetkids live in her tunnels, and everyone is drawn to the spectacle that is the carnival.
Tally meets Blue, an indigenous undoc in the south interzone, and he teaches her the streets. They get involved in a little illegal marketing which ensures Tally gets around town to look for her sister.Grace doesn’t make it easy for her. She believes Tally dead and any thought of her gets pushed deep down. In her blind quest to make it as an actress, mirrored in today’s desperation for fifteen minutes of reality fame, Grace is targeted by low-rent sex workers in record time and is surrounded by deviancy her whole time in the city. She changes her name and her appearance and fools herself well. While Tally is flashing her one digital image of Grace around, Grace is becoming someone else.

Someone else being creative with the truth is Damon Spark, hack journalist, purveyor of journotainment. He’s there, being subversive and morally indignant in turn, at the climax; the undoc uprising that’s coming as the police cleanse the streets to create an illusion for visiting dignitaries. Sadly Damon’s protestations are more for his perceived integrity than for the fate of the city’s underclass.

The most original character is Milk, a moodie. His migrant father had a lawyer son and a dentist son, and... Milk who spends his waking hours manipulating the mood of the room on a much higher level than a DJ at a nightclub. He is a magician who can control and alter moods with colours, lights, sounds, and edge-of-awareness scents. His work is observed by government operatives who hire him under the pretence of spring-cleaning the city, injecting harmony and goodwill. He is deceived by the perceived respect, he’s a ‘government consultant’ (215), and ignores the sinister intent in which ‘the public just needs a nudge in the right direction’ (213).

‘There are those who make a positive contribution to the city, and those who do the opposite. They’re just a drain on resources and they don’t portray the place in the best light (213).’

Cue the destruction and fallout of character lines intertwining as undocs and sympathisers protest at the security summit. As the city explodes with sirens wailing, ‘bodies mown down like weeds’  (277) and ‘flames gobbling like a mass of hungry tongues’ (273), the story’s denouement is subtle and fast and hardly a solid conclusion, but it works.

seventeen: August by Bernard Beckett

August by Bernard Beckett
Published by Text
Review published in Fiction Focus: New Titles for Teenagers 25 (2) 2011, pp. 52-53
and online at CMIS


I reviewed August for CMIS (review to come), and felt uncomfortable because I wrote a less than glowing review about a highly publicised new book. The author's last book had won awards!
I was underwhelmed by the story, and put off by the rehashing of (I thought) overused and boring stereotypes. Women as the spawn of the devil, that sort of thing...
And I found the characters one dimensional.
So, vindication arrived in the form of a review by Lachlan Jobbins in March's Bookseller and Publisher (p31).
Lachlan wrote that 'August has barely any plot and almost no characterisation... Its characters are little more than ciphers for ideas, or pawns to move the story along.... a contrived work of speculative fiction.' !!

I don't like every book I read, but reviewing it in a constructive way is a good challenge. But I'm more looking forward to the next book I'm reviewing, Meg Mundell's Black Glass. It's action packed and well written speculative fiction. August has always been a nowhere kind of month...


Dystopia. Age 15+. Set in a dystopian world, featuring religion, philosophy, bigotry, the idea of love, and an upturned car, August ends as it began with two strangers 'floating, tumbling together in a machine not made for tumbling, weightless and free.'
Tristan has crashed a stolen car. He and his passenger fall down the cliff. Many characters have died throughout literary history, but few have died leaving such little empathy in readers' hearts. Their fate is suspended in the last paragraph, but I found myself pleased to be free of them.

The cover blurb raises expectations of a dramatic play-like text: two injured protagonists trapped in an upturned car. The relationship dynamic could have been compelling.

The story unfolds in alternating chapters in third-person-limited point of view, covering both characters' stories. This restricted viewpoint limits the reader's ability to develop empathy because their viewpoint is not reflected by other characters. August has been described as complex, as its core philosophical discussion is about the nature of free will and this involves some surprising but foreshadowed twists.


Set in the City of God, with charismatic priests who have no compassion for outsiders, August may provoke discussion in Religion and History classes when studying the change place of women in society. Readers may also be alienated by tired stereotypes. Tristan's first encounter with a girl comes in a situation controlled by the rector. She is naked and he is forced to look. 


Even mothers were not permitted to visit. Augustine himself had taught that woman was temptation, the devil's lever.


From this point Tristan can think of no-one except the girl he will eventually come to know as Grace. She in turn imagines him as her angel. Grace's poverty forces her into prostitution, a situation in which the Church is complicit. Setup is vital, because Tristan could not have picked her up in a stolen car if she was not working on the streets.


Tristan and Grace do not quite intersect in each other's lives for some time, each elevating the other on a pedestal. 


'There was never a time I stopped loving you.' 
'Not me,' Grace countered. 'Your idea of me.'


The idea of each other is all they ever have, because once they finally meet, Tristan exercises his free will with little thought for Grace having the same rights. 

sixteen: Rebel by R J Anderson

Rebel by R J Anderson

London, Orchard, 2010

Review published online at CMIS Resource Bank and in Fiction Focus

Age 12+.  An adventure featuring humans and Oakenfolk united against the evil cult leader faery, The Empress.

For teenagers who still want to believe in faery folk, but want a bit of edge, a bit of attitude, this series is a standout. Comparable to Justine Larbalestier’s How to Ditch Your Fairy, the faeries in this series are far removed from the fluttery creatures of Daisy Meadows’ series that readers may have devoured when younger.

The quadrilogy (Faery Rebels, named for US audiences) includes Knife, Rebel, Arrow and Swift (latter two to be published 2011/12), but the reader doesn’t need to have read the prequel to appreciate the storyline of Rebel.

Anderson employs vivid sensory descriptions, including a drone faery with ‘blond hair worn poet-length’ (p. 171) and the human aroma as a ‘thick meaty smell pungent with chemicals and salt’ (p. 169).

The viewpoint varies, focusing first on Linden, a young Oakenwyld faery blessed by the dying Queen as ‘our people’s greatest hope’ (p.12). Linden’s quest is to seek out the Children of Rhys to beg for a share in their magic, as her people’s magic was exhausted years before.  Without magic and glamours after the Queen’s death, the Oakenwyld faeries will die.

Rebel’s viewpoint undertakes a dimensional shift when Timothy, a human teenager, arrives at Oakhaven on suspension from school and is drawn to the oak, ‘a lonely titan shivering in the cold’ (p. 27).Timothy runs away to London unwittingly with Linden in his backpack. When he and Linden come to the attention of The Empress, Timothy is forced to believe in faeries and reluctantly joins Linden’s quest.

Timothy’s isolation as an English schoolboy from Uganda (child of missionaries) is replicated by the Oakewyld faeries isolation from others of their kind (they’re all female and confined to the Oak). Timothy and Linden become friends in this adventurous coming-of-age story.

fifteen: in the playhouse

i feel that i never get to enough plays, so to have eight in one hit puts my annual total up a bit. this is the weekend i was waiting all year for, since i moved here.
the north queensland festival of one-act plays over two nights at the civic theatre was as good as i'd hoped. i don't know which play or performances won yet (didn't stay for the decision) but i know which ones i liked. i remember going to either the first or second festival years ago when wendy was teaching drama at st margaret mary's (this was the 17th) and the audience was much larger.
i was disappointed with the size of the audience this time. hardly any young people and possibly lacking in many of the local school drama departments' students and teachers (although the weekend clashed with groovin the moo at murray, so maybe that was where they all were?)

my pick for best play: jabberwocky by ken cotterill with community theatre.
my pick for best actors (several): emma davis in sorry wrong number (as well as several of the operators) by columba catholic college and both esme mullens and lyn tarring in townsville little theatre's garbage by helen wyngard.
no idea about best direction (there were many good elements).

synopses:
mitch and miranda (community theatre) - effective use of breaking the fourth wall, and repetition with a twist in the end that i did not see coming.

lee (kumcom theatre) - interesting use of old film to introduce the play (subject - who really killed jfk?) but it went on too long. the man and lee were very powerful characters.

heedless spirits (pimlico state high) - good cast (4 f, 2 m) but the synopsis didn't match what i saw in the end - while i heard that julia was no longer in love with dave, when he came to sit next to her at the end (in a very smooth move), she looked bashful rather than indifferent. the interaction between the girls was brilliant though.

jabberwocky (community theatre) - excellent absurdist theatre! i absolutely loved the woman who was not there, especially her rhythmic spoken word dance act -  he beats her / every night / bam / bam (cheryl maddox). the poor man! he eventually gave in to 'the force from outside' and staggered off stage at a 45 degree angle. the waitress was good too with line delivery.

 the shed (townsville little theatre) - clever, a one act play with two sets.

sorry wrong number (columba catholic college) - excellent lighting and direction. mrs stevenson was in bed, only used her upper body, only ever used the telephone. no walking, just lots of talking (and shouting and one very effective scream). each telephone operator was stagelit at their turn at one side of the stage. there were some very funny accents and mannerisms. it was very dial m for murder. the sound of the train and the deep-voiced man at the end were very chilling. lovely to see mrs stevenson alive after curtain fall to come in to the audience for the next play!

garbage (townsville little theatre) - strong audience support from tlt members. lyn tarring as florrie probably had the most heartrending stage speech of the festival. as both florrie and sniffy left the stage (at different times), i would have probably made a point of writing that both of them had left their homes or once had homes. it was a point made for florrie, but i don't remember it for sniffy. mags, who liked the open space never left the stage.

three brilliant performances coming up in the year for the school's program too.
the gruffalo, an adaptation of the picture book by julia donaldson and axel scheffler.
special delivery, a visual comedy.
and something i highly recommend (i saw these performers at out of the box 2006) - tashi!! two tales from imaginary theatre and anna and barbara fienberg's tashi stories.

thanks, townsville theatre community! [first published on http://the-storyspace.blogspot.com/, May 2010]

added notes 5.5.10: Results published so far
Congratulations to Columba Catholic College students involved in the Townsville Festival of One Act Plays held over the May Day Long Weekend. The play “Sorry, Wrong Number” won the award for the Best Production – Junior Section; Best Director – Junior Section; and Best Crew – Festival.

fourteen: the black book of colours by menena cottin

The Black Book of Colours by Menena Cottin

London: Walker, 2010

Review published 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank

The Black Book of Colours captivates everyone who gets their hands on it. Ask yourself on finishing: do you really see our world, or have you become blind to its brilliance?

Thomas is blind, but that doesn’t mean he misses out on the rich rainbow of colours that fills our world. His mother has worked with him to identify the smell and feel of colours, the taste and the sound of colours. The Black Book is presented from Thomas’ third person viewpoint, incorporating Braille text with white typeset text on the left of each completely black double spread, with raised black line drawings on the right.

Evocative text describes colours through sensory imagery to allow sighted readers to understand how blind and low vision people may experience colour.

Red is sour like unripe strawberries and as sweet as watermelon. It hurts when he finds it on his scraped knee.

The Black Book will have many applications in the classroom, from disability awareness to history (of Braille), art class and English. Students may make their own sensory picture story books or use vivid imagery to describe colours. Scratch and sniff strips, siren sounds, fluffy feathers and sandpaper are found in various tactile toddler books to link words and senses. The Black Book uses descriptive language to bring those senses to life. It targets sighted people to develop understanding of a blind or low vision person’s life experience. On a more complex level, tolerance of others’ viewpoints could be taught – we all see things differently.

Readers may begin to imagine what it is like to read by touch, but decoding these line drawings is surprisingly difficult. Their structure is not truly tactile as outlined by IFLA.

For futher literacy extension, students may develop their own black boxes in the style of Vision Australia’s Feelix kits. Such kits may contain the storybook with typewritten and Braille text, an audio version (or the children may read to a visually impaired student), and a variety of tactile props to support the story. Props for The Very Hungry Caterpillar could result in quite a feast!

thirteen: the river by libby hathorn and stanley wong

The River by Libby Hathorn & Stanley Wong

Curriculum Corporation, 2001

“The story is about a treasure!  You’ll see…”

What is Xian’s treasure, and what does it mean to Hong?  Stanley Wong’s design expertly sets the scene with his brushstroke title, Chinese lettering and faithful depiction of scrolls, furnishings and landscape.  Single spread illustrations cover each page with the two interwoven stories differing in layout.  The use of frames for today’s indoor urban scenes is perhaps a metaphor for its controlled nature, where Hong’s father is single-minded:

“Hong! You haven’t done your homework… get on with your duties!” 

Rural China (of 50-60 years past) is depicted in sprawling landscapes that reach the edges of each page.

Children enjoy The River for its adventure and introduction to Chinese culture.  Insertion of three panels within the larger illustration (p. 30) cleverly shows action essential to the plot.  The blue and white pot (of the past) is placed near the blue and white iMac computer on the next to last page suggesting a coming together of past and present (as is the theme of Xian’s treasure).

Libby Hathorn clearly has a strong interest in presenting Asian stories.  Notes mention the Vietnamese story on her website which readers will want to explore.  In this book, Hong is gifted the story of The River and the reader shares it with her. 

Xian’s remembrance of home, “Keep to the river. Remember, it’s your friend,” sets the linear path that she must follow from her old life (when her mother dies) to the future with her grandparents. 

Two notes of incongruity in this family tale concern Xian’s father not being mentioned, and

the incident with the boy and girl which happens in her grandparent’s village, her safe haven.

Hathorn presents a good adventure, but it did not flow as strongly as the story’s river.  More exploration into Hong’s family life would have served the story better.  We are left wondering why Ming gave her story to Hong and not her own granddaughter.

If the reader can ignore these small points of discontent, they will indeed have found a treasure and will perhaps be inspired to ask about their own family’s stories.

twelve: end of the alphabet by fleur beale

End of the Alphabet by Fleur Beale,

Auckland : Random, 2009

review published 2010 online at CMIS Resource Bank

Ruby Yarrow, the girl least likely to succeed, is a naïve fourteen year old New Zealander struggling to find her place in a blended family. Her younger step-brothers are piled on top of her in the smallest bedroom while her other brother Max (aged about 13) rules the house with his selfish behaviour. She is made to feel ashamed of her learning difficulties, but with her best friend’s intervention she begins to stand up for herself – that’s when the trouble begins.

Through first person narrative readers witness Ruby’s small acts of defiance that challenge Max as he leaves domestic duties to her and disengages himself from family. He’s the smart son, but lazy and surly, while Ruby struggles each day as a cleaner for the shopkeeper Mr Vine to finance a school trip-of-a-lifetime.

Her pay dispute with Mr Vine leads to her threatening union involvement, while her dispute with her mother over privacy leads to a domestic strike. Ruby’s learning difficulties appear to be given scant attention at school, while her mother openly derides her options in life. With a new friendship, Ruby begins to learn Portuguese.

Max is so threatened by Ruby’s personal growth he absconds to Australia, which is where the novel shows its plot holes. Max and Ruby’s estranged father, Hayden, who they haven’t had contact with for nearly thirteen years, pays for Max’s plane ticket and makes a place for him in his new family. Has Max a passport or visa, and why did Hayden not contact Max’s mother to arrange the move? This is an unfortunate example of a deus ex machina for a situation that could have been solved differently.

This is a light read, with stronger texts available to encourage adolescent self-belief. Readers will find other Beale novels and characters more engaging.

eleven: Australia Dances by Allan Brissenden and Keith Glennon

Australia Dances: Creating Australian Dance 1945-1965 by Allan Brissenden and Keith Glennon,

Wakefield Press, 2010

review published 2010 at M/C Reviews

The country’s dance is a totality, and there is still scope for the development of a national perspective to evaluate and more liberal means to foster contributions to the whole, a perspective based on a greater understanding of the values of dance to individual and social life. (Brissenden and Glennon, 2010, p 4)

Dance enthusiasts will find much to explore in this beautifully presented hardcover book with a gazelle-like William Harvey on the cover.  Ostensibly spanning the twenty-year post-World War Two era, Australia Dances provides a strong in-depth portrait of dancers and dance companies from across Australia, and illuminates the layers of creativity leading to this pivotal time in history. Around eighty years ago Louise Lightfoot and Misha Burlakov presented a two-act version of Coppelia, at Sydney’s Savoy Theatre. Their progression from community concerts to amateur and then professional company is a tale of international collaboration and strategic planning. While Miss Lightfoot covered production and costume design, operational concerns posed a constant dilemma; that is, from where to source musical scores, and how to obtain performing rights from overseas publishers. Ensuring availability of a venue posed problems as Miss Lightfoot remarked, “We always had big studios in buildings which were threatened to be pulled down.” (Brissenden, 2010, p.83)

This post-war period abounded with dancers performing, teaching and creating companies; enhancing the dance culture and its development as an artform. Readers can trace the performance histories of dancers, productions and companies, including David Lichine’s The Nutcracker, Ray Powell’s The Lady and the Fool for the Australian Ballet, Robert Helpmann’s Elektra and Joan Halliday’s Theseus and the Minotaur for The Sydney Ballet Group.

While major groups such as the Borovansky Ballet enjoyed successful seasons, dance flourished across Australia, with companies and groups such as The Sydney Ballet Group and Australian Dance Theatre gaining strong reputations internationally.

Australia Dances is richly illustrated in colour and black and white with many photographs never previously published. These images capture dancers in elaborate costumes and intimate poses. Constable’s costume sketches for the 1951 Borovansky production of Petrouchka capture vibrance (p.15). Aboriginal theatre is represented, as are travelling companies including The Arts Council of Australia. While in this period dance received little government subsidy, its productions built upon one another to become recognised at the national level.

Brissenden notes (p.4) that “the relationship (of dance) with ethnology can lead to a greater historical awareness and closer understanding of other peoples.” It is this global understanding which underpins the development of dance in this country.

Brissenden’s coffee-table book is generously indexed as well as being categorized by state, and will be a rich resource for researchers and dance lovers alike.

ten: the winds of heaven by judith clarke

The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke,

review published by Allen and Unwin Teachers Reviews, 2009 online

The sound you hear as you reach the end of this story is the wrenching tear of your heart breaking. The Winds of Heaven is a story filled with imagery which the reader can smell, taste, hear, see and feel. We hear the tinny sound of Johnny Cash on the radio, and feel the cool linen cloth as Clementine does.

The rural setting at Lake Conapaira in the 1950s, with frustrated teenage sexuality and poorly

treated Aboriginal Australians, is reminiscent of Julia Lawrinson’s Bye Beautiful. Both novels

utilise a dichotomy between two girls (in this book, cousins) with a peripheral Aboriginal

character. In The Winds of Heaven, Fan’s elderly Aboriginal friend remains off stage. We

learn that he has taught Fan his language and culture, and this connection gives the story an

earthy depth. Fan teaches Clementine his words like bilirr (cockatoo) and gindaymaidhaany

(sisters), but Clementine remains stuck fast in her traditional Sydney lifestyle.
The suggestion that Fan’s storytelling friend was run out of town by racist townspeople is

subtle; he may have simply moved on. His absence uproots her.

The cousins are drawn as opposites, but see strengths in the other that they perceive lacking in themselves. There are the dichotomies of wealth and poverty, nuclear family unit and broken home, educated and uneducated, nurtured and abused, with Fan emerging the poorer each time.

The cousins’ emotional closeness contrasts with the chasm between their mothers who are

sisters. One married well. Rene, Fan’s mother, however, is a vicious, bitter woman whose

husband deserted her for Gunnesweare (Clementine eventually works out she is screaming

‘God knows where!’). Rene physically abuses her youngest daughter, that little madam, while

her scream got into things and made them weak: you felt that if you picked up your cup it. Rene’s moral failing is offensive to her sister, and because of their place in history she abandons Rene. In this act she also abandons Fan to her fate.

Fan’s downfall is drawn out, beautiful like shattered stained glass, and tragic. As a librarian I

found Judith’s library scene excruciating. I wanted to find her poem for her and give Cash a

bag of picture books to take home. The fact that this is Fan’s breaking point, when she is

stripped of her identity as Yirigaa (morning star), is so sad.

Clementine, who is Everywoman, comes through too late for Fan, but redeems herself as an

older woman by establishing a nurturing relationship with Fan’s granddaughter, also called

Fan. Would real life have ended so neatly?

In fiction, teenage pregnancy can go down three equally difficult paths – botched abortion,

loveless marriage or suicide. Lawrinson’s Bye Beautiful tried the loveless marriage while

Winds climaxes with Fan's bloodless suicide. In a classroom reading, readers may discuss how this issue has altered in society. What community support and legal protection would Fan

have access to today? Regarding Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal Australians, how has this

country’s perception of its original inhabitants changed since the 1950s?
What would you have done as Fan’s gindaymaidhaany?

nine: mouse noses on toast by daren king

Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King,

review published in Allen & Unwin Teachers Reviews, 2007 online

Mouse Noses silly title grabbed us, rewarding us with an introduction to Paul Mouse and his wonderful assortment of friends. We met Sandra, the houseproud Christmas decoration, shaggy sheepdog Rowley Barker Hobbs, and the Tinby; a sort of monster, though smaller than a monster and a lot more fun to be around. What happens when they venture beyond their overgrown garden home? Paul Mouse has a cheese allergy; if he stood near a tasty cheddar his bottom would turn blue, the fur would fall out and his tail would curl up like a question mark. Paul is forced to sit on a cheddar chair early on, so spends the book running about trying to hide his bare blue bottom. But Mouse Noses is not all about Paul’s blue bottom, or about how he conquers his allergy. While treating themselves to a posh meal after Paul’s ordeal, the friends discover humans eating a prized dish – mouse noses on toast… with whiskers or without! The mouse population is horrified. The Tinby incites them to action. Mouse Noses to their middle primary classes and discuss political action, belief in a cause, friendship and conquering fears, or they may turn blue with laughter. Mouse Noses will leave readers feeling cheerful and triumphant. But will they eat mouse noses with whiskers, or without?

 

The promise of

These pocket-sized political activists, led by cowardly Larry, march across the restaurant floor chanting protest songs and waving cardboard signs proclaiming ‘Hands off our noses!’ Their crusade takes them to the Prime Minister and out of town to sabotage the Mouse Noses Abattoir. What happens there can only be revealed by reading right to the end. Despite my humanness I was cheering for the mouses! David Roberts’ delightfully whimsical line drawings complement King’s story perfectly. Teachers may read

eight: the peach season by debra oswald

The Peach Season (playscript) by Debra Oswald

Currency Press, Sydney, 2007

review published in VATE Newsletter, no. 4, September 2007

Kieren, the wild, trashy boy from Sydney, bites into a Red Haven peach and gasps, getting a rush. ‘Oh, this is—far out, this is— How come I never tasted anything like this in my life before?’ Like the Red Haven, The Peach Season is raw and exhilarating. Debra Oswald’s tender and confronting script explores love through a concentrated collection of universally significant relationships: mother/daughter, mother/son, brother/sister, man/woman. What begins as a plan to get people in to pick the fruit for market, rapidly bursts into personal territory. The blurb reads…’It’s the best season for five years at Celia’s farm, and the fruit is rotting on the branches for want of pickers.’ The trees go to ruin with daughter Zoe.

This two act drama, first produced by Griffin Theatre Company in 2006, features emotionally engaging dialogue exchanges. Black and white photographs accompany some significant scenes. Actor Maeve Dermody (Zoe) introduces the script, while Oswald illuminates the myth of Demeter and Persephone which subtly underpins her characters’ journeys. The atmospheric dichotomy of rural utopia and urban underworld provides opportunities to elicit student responses about representations of contemporary Australia and the fears consuming our love.

A synopsis of the journey: Zoe feels burdened by her sheltered life, barely alive. Two Sydney ferals seek picking work at her mother’s peach orchard to finance an escape from police. Zoe’s need to sever the relationship with her overprotective mother pushes her to extremes. Captured by the luscious rush of first love, she escapes with Kieren, stumbling in to degradation; drug use, break and enters, sleeping rough. Zoe then witnesses the violent death of another girl. Along the way we experience a mother’s deep love for her child, and the tangle of brother/sister relationships. We are amused confidantes in grandmother Dorothy’s dry asides to-camera, and as a side-dish, we cheer for the rebound love that rejuvenates Joe and Sheena.

This strong Currency Press publication for senior school students features a small cast (4F, 2M) ranging in age. No follow-up activities or notes are included. Perhaps there lies an opportunity. The script contains minimal stage directions. Peach is pitched to a more mature audience than Oswald’s Dags and Stephen Davis’ Juice, but certainly to those who can cope with Nick Enright’s Blackrock. Peach contains more tenderness and humanity than Blackrock, but both contain profanities and exposure of life’s underbelly. Its issues, more complex than those of After January, could be explored in class alongside Juice and Heroin Lies, or in production.

Zoe could be compared to Vicki, the ordinary girl of Heroin Lies who is ‘no troublemaker or runaway, truant or secret smoker, well, not at first.’ Unlike Vicki, Zoe emerges from her Hell; damaged, but stronger.

seven: the tattooed flower: a memoir by suzy zail

The Tattooed Flower: A Memoir by Suzy Zail

Scribe Publications, Carlton North, Vic, 2006

review published in VATE Newsletter, no. 4, September 2007

Suzy Zail has managed what many of us wish we had done, but find it is too late. She asked her father about his life. They were like most fathers and daughters¾ too lazy to ask questions, too busy to listen. Emil then found he was dying. Motor Neurone Disease shocked Suzy and her brothers out of their detachment. Suzy knew her father was born in a small town in Czechoslovakia but couldn’t remember its name. She could see the modest flower tattooed on his forearm, but not what lay beneath.

In 1944, thirteen year old Emil Braun, his family, and hundreds of other Czechoslovakian Jews were loaded onto cattle trains for the chilling ride to Birkenau. Emil tells his story. The chapters of his past are interwoven with Zail’s revealing account of her father’s final five years. Zail’s lovingly produced memoir portrays her father as a good man, able to leave his tragic Holocaust childhood behind to thrive as an adult in Australia. The Holocaust had been an aberration¾a dark, bleak time in history. It didn’t define humanity and it wouldn’t define me.

The Tattooed Flower is a compelling personal account of the Holocaust for History students, to be read alongside others published decades ago. An early Birkenau incident provides a revealing anecdote about Dr Josef Mengele. Concentration camp cruelty on a daily level is exposed. Indiscriminate slaughter, miserable provisions, isolation of family members – how did the oppressors think these acts made them the better people? Students of Religion will find that bigotry tainted Emil’s earliest school days. Those studying immigration issues will find that Emil left his childhood behind when he docked at Port Melbourne in 1950. People looked happy, he said. The first Australian he met was a freckle-faced boy raised on beaches and pineapple juice. I’ve found my future. Dave, a sympathetic Australian tattooist, covered Emil’s camp number with a simple floral design.

In the 1960s the Brauns were a family of five and Emil Braun Jewellers the biggest diamond-ring-mount manufacturer in Australia. Emil was founder and chairman of the second largest Jewish social club in Australia, and served as Mayor of the City of Caulfield from 1988. Flower is also a creditable introductory biography of a significant Australian. Although the Australian years are not fleshed out, perhaps because Emil chose to remain silent about his achievements, Zail has the scrapbooks to show what kind of man her father was. You wanted to know who I am, Mr Braun said. I’ve talked for nine nights but I can tell you who I am in less than a minute: I’m a man, loved by a beautiful woman, graced with incredible kids. A lucky man.

An insightful memoir.