JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas

Christos Tsiolkas’ stunning new novel Damascus is a work of soaring ambition and achievement, of immense power and epic scope, taking as its subject nothing less than events surrounding the birth and establishment of the Christian church.

Based around the gospels and letters of St Paul, and focusing on characters one and two generations on from the death of Christ, as well as Paul (Saul) himself, Damascus nevertheless explores the themes that have always obsessed Tsiolkas as a writer: class, religion, masculinity, patriarchy, colonisation, exile; the ways in which nations, societies, communities, families and individuals are united and divided – it’s all here, the contemporary and urgent questions, perennial concerns made vivid and visceral.

In Damascus, Tsiolkas has written a masterpiece of imagination and transformation: an historical novel of immense power and an unflinching dissection of doubt and faith, tyranny and revolution, and cruelty and sacrifice.

Acclaimed Australian author Christos Tsiolkas’ latest novel, Damascus, is an incredible surprise to read — an astonishing feat, tackling such a huge scope of a story in just 400 pages, but one of my favourite novels of the year and a book I felt completely blindsided by.

Damascus is an ancient biblical story about St Paul and the birth of the Christian Church, introducing us to Paul’s journey and involvement in the Church and other people along the way whose stories intersect with Paul. Christos explores class, family, status, reputation, faith and acceptance, set against the backdrop of the Roman Empire many years after the death of Jesus Christ.

“I was outraged. After such a brazen insult I was ready to go. But just then the screen was drawn and an old woman emerged, her head shrouded, her thin hands clutching a basket laden with dried fruits, breads and pickled nuts. The crowd rose as one and rushed to her….In an instant the basket had been emptied.”

If this book wasn’t written by someone as talented and acclaimed as Christos, I wouldn’t have requested it from the publisher. A tale such as this needs to be tackled properly, respectfully, compassionately, but it also needs to be interesting enough to bring in readers — like me — who don’t care that much for religion or faith. And Christos has done a marvellous job.

I can’t begin to imagine the level of research that would’ve gone into this book — the amount of time it took reading about the life of St Paul. At the end of the book, Christos’ author note tells us why he decided to write about St Paul, and I almost wish I had read this before starting the book. It’s reflective and eye-opening but it also adds a level of depth to the story that altered my perspective and made me think about Damascus on a much deeper level.

“They kill us, they crucify us, they throw us to beasts in the arena, they sew our lips together and watch us starve. They bugger children in front of their mothers and violate men in front of their wives. The temple priests flay us openly in the streets. We are hunted everywhere and we are hunted by everyone …”

Three quarters through the book and I do feel like the momentum slows down a little too much — I felt lost in the story, not entirely sure where it was headed and why we were meant to continue pursing this story. The storyline and characters become a little slow and beige, and my attention wavered. I’m glad I stuck it out though, because the conclusion to the story is authentic and welcome.

Recommended for literary fiction readers. Readers must possess some sort of interest in the Roman Empire because that forms the backdrop for this entire book. I have no interest in religion or Christianity — I am an avid Atheist and nothing will ever change that. And I loved this book. I’m therefore confident this book will appeal to many readers, and will find many loyal fans.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Damascus
Christos Tsiolkas
November 2019
Allen & Unwin Publishers

Wearing Paper Dresses by Anne Brinsden

You can talk about living in the Mallee. And you can talk about a Mallee tree. And you can talk about the Mallee itself: a land and a place full of red sand and short stubby trees. Silent skies. The undulating scorch of summer plains. Quiet, on the surface of things.

But Elise wasn’t from the Mallee, and she knew nothing of its ways.

Discover the world of a small homestead perched on the sunburnt farmland of northern Victoria. Meet Elise, whose urbane 1950s glamour is rudely transplanted to the pragmatic red soil of the Mallee when her husband returns to work the family farm. But you cannot uproot a plant and expect it to thrive.

And so it is with Elise. Her meringues don’t impress the shearers, the locals scoff at her Paris fashions, her husband works all day in the back paddock, and the drought kills everything but the geraniums she despises.

As their mother withdraws more and more into herself, her spirited, tearaway daughters, Marjorie and Ruby, wild as weeds, are left to raise themselves as best they can. Until tragedy strikes, and Marjorie flees to the city determined to leave her family behind. And there she stays, leading a very different life, until the boy she loves draws her back to the land she can’t forget…

Wearing Paper Dresses is a debut literary novel from Australian author Anne Brinsden, set in rural Mallee in the 1950s, which explores notions of family, land, mental illness and responsibility.

Glamorous, sophisticated, talented Elise leaves the city and moves with her two children and her husband to her father-in-law’s wheat and sheep farm in Mallee. The townsfolk are instantly suspicious of her and her ‘city’ ways. She drinks coffee and not tea and she doesn’t understand what it’s like to live in such a harsh environment.

Most of the novel is from the POV of Elise’s daughter Marjorie, and over the years, we witness Elise’s mental health deteriorate. She starts talking to plastic flowers and wearing tea cosies on her head. Her husband and father-in-law acknowledge her health but pretend to ignore it; they assume it’ll solve itself. Wearing Paper Dresses highlights how poorly mental illness was received in the 1950s.

“The talk might have stopped but the hint of a glittery look didn’t. The tea in the teapot went cold from then on. But naked teapots and cold tea didn’t bother Elise because she drank coffee — and coffee percolators didn’t generally dress themselves in cosies.”

Through Marjorie’s perspective, we experience the hurt, confusion and the embarrassment that she feels growing up. But we also witness the solid bond she forms with her sister Ruby, and there’s definitely a strong sense of camaraderie there as they both work together to get through their mother’s troubling illness and the effect it has on their childhood.

This book certainly wasn’t what I expected it to be, after reading the blurb and looking at the cover. I anticipated this to be a chick-lit, perhaps a rural romance novel. And whilst there’s an element of romance in this book between Marjorie and one of the boys in her class, this book is about the relationship between Marjorie and her family, and about the events that lead to Elise’s many nervous breakdowns.

Wearing Paper Dresses is as much a character-driven novel as it is plot-driven. I was pleasantly surprised by this book, and found myself enchanted by the setting, the characters, and the plot. Whilst the book explores difficult themes such as mental illness and domestic abuse, you can’t help but fall in love with the characters.

“Marjorie stayed home from school after that and helped Elise. They dug and raked and swept. And Elise was alive and burning with energy. Their waking hours were consumed with garden making. They piled red dirt into neat garden beds all over the yard, Marjorie imaging all the while the rose garden to come.”

The setting is one of the strengths of the novel — Anne has perfectly captured the harsh, sunburnt landscape of the Mallee, and it’s easy to imagine just how difficult life would be like for Elise and her family. The setting feels incredibly isolating, but also claustrophobic at the same time, a juxtaposition that evokes great unease for most of the novel.

The writing is lyrical, funny and descriptive, the imagery drawing you in and holding you hostage with enticing vocabulary and prose. The pacing is on point — authentic and realistic to the storyline. Wearing Paper Dresses is an impressive debut.

Recommended for literary fiction readers, and those readers who love a rural setting. Fans of historical fiction will also find much to love about this book.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wearing Paper Dresses
Anne Brinsden
October 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Confession by Jessie Burton

One winter’s afternoon on Hampstead Heath in 1980, Elise Morceau meets Constance Holden and quickly falls under her spell. Connie is bold and alluring, a successful writer whose novel is being turned into a major Hollywood film. Elise follows Connie to LA, a city of strange dreams and swimming pools and late-night gatherings of glamorous people. But whilst Connie thrives on the heat and electricity of this new world where everyone is reaching for the stars and no one is telling the truth, Elise finds herself floundering. When she overhears a conversation at a party that turns everything on its head, Elise makes an impulsive decision that will change her life forever.

Three decades later, Rose Simmons is seeking answers about her mother, who disappeared when she was a baby. Having learned that the last person to see her was Constance Holden, a reclusive novelist who withdrew from public life at the peak of her fame, Rose is drawn to the door of Connie’s imposing house in search of a confession …

The Confession by Jessie Burton is an intimate, moving novel about the power of women, and their relationship with each other. In a letter accompanying the book, Jessie acknowledges that the book is about the physical, psychological and spiritual autonomy of women —it explores love, sex, friendship, family and work, and how these things are vital to a woman’s self-esteem and sense of self. The Confession, in many ways, is an exploration of female identity.

The book follows a dual timeline, switching back and forth between 1980s, when Elise and Connie’s paths cross, to decades later in 2017, when Elise’s daughter Rose is on a desperate search to find her mother.

Elise is beautiful, young and naive — too trusting, but also desperate for love and connection. She meets the much older Constance Holden, who is bold and confident, sure of herself and charismatic. Constance is a writer whose novel is about to be turned into a Hollywood film, and when the two being a relationship, Elise follows Connie to Los Angeles.

“Elise closed her eyes and thought about how, at dinner parties, there are always other conversations not being shared. Matt and Shara and their unseen baby, lost like a ghost inside their marriage. Elise wondered whether there was any pain left in Shara’s body now, or whether it was just in her head, an occasional guest who led her down a staircase that only she could tread.”

Elise is easily overwhelmed once she moves to Los Angeles. Connie grows a bit distant and their relationship grows strained. Soon, Elise is finding comfort in someone else’s arms — someone she shouldn’t be pursuing.

In present day 2017, Rose wants to track down her missing mother. Elise abandoned Rose and her father when she was very little, and no one has heard from her since. Does Connie know? Rose creates an alias and takes a job as Connie’s assistant, working quickly to find out what happened to Elise all those years ago.

“Connie’s eyes were moist, her gnarled fingers resting on either arm of the chair as if it was a throne. She’d spoken so much, unpacking herself, and she looked exhausted. I watched as her face folded slowly into a picture of sadness. I wanted to go to her, to comfort her, to tell her that my mother was in this room, an old love, an invisible thread, trying together the ones she’d left behind.”

The three women are incredibly complex — we meet them all intimately over the course of the novel. We see them in private moments, when they’re scared or challenged. We witness their weakest moments and their strongest.

Characterisation is one of the strengths of the novel, taking us deep inside the minds and motivations of Elise, Connie and Rose. They’re all so unique and their voices so distinct — Jessie has done an exceptional job of capturing each of their personalities so vividly.

“An electric sense of my skin, my hands and feet. I did not feel triumphant. But I did, in an interesting way, feel more free. To be always waiting and wanting had been my most natural state to be. To be yearning for something, rather than having the guts to make it real.”

The Confession is a fabulous, luminous read, tackling friendship, women, motherhood, parenting and the complexities of relationships. Fans of literary fiction, women’s fiction, and the importance of strong, female-led stories will love this. I haven’t yet read Jessie Burton’s previous works but now I plan to go out and buy her books. Her writing is seamless and evocative — her sentences structure flawless.

Highly recommend.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Confession
Jessie Burton
October 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar

Kitty Hawke, the last inhabitant of a dying island sinking into the wind-lashed Chesapeake Bay, has resigned herself to annihilation…

Until one night her granddaughter blows ashore in the midst of a storm, desperate, begging for sanctuary. For years, Kitty has kept herself to herself – with only the company of her wolfdog, Girl – unconcerned by the world outside, or perhaps avoiding its worst excesses. But blood cannot be turned away in times like these. And when trouble comes following her granddaughter, no one is more surprised than Kitty to find she will fight to save her as fiercely as her name suggests…

Wolfe Island is the second literary novel from Australian author Lucy Treloar, set on an estuary that is slowly disappearing in the ocean.

Wolfe Island is part of the Chesapeake Bay estuary off the east coast of the US. The ocean is slowly swallowing it and over the years, one by one, the locals have fled the island for the mainland. But not Kitty Hawke — she’s now the sole survivor of that island, and she’s determined to stay there for as long as possible.

But when four young runaway kids — one of whom is her 16-year-old granddaughter Catalina Hawke — show up desperate to hide from their families, Kitty takes them under her wing. They stay in a vacant house on the island and over a period of many months, Kitty and the group bond.

“I went to the marsh walkway, a structure that ambled above the eastern salt marsh like a caterpillar in search of a leaf. It had a way of clearing my mind, which was muddled then by many worries: about the future, and about Claudie and what she knew, and whether I should tell Claudie about Cat, and what I suspected about her.”

In Wolfe Island, America is in the midst of a climate crisis. The coast of the country is being eaten away by the ocean and scores of people from the south are venturing to the north in seek of refuge. But this is not a safe world. They’re not welcome in the north, and anyone fleeing north — ‘runners’ — are hunted, captured and locked up.

Two of Catalina’s companions are runners seeking refuge.

“Not long after, we passed a farm prison where illegals and children, perhaps their own, all dressed in orange, were in trees picking fruit. It was the first I had seen of that sort of thing.”

A talented artist, Kitty is an interesting protagonist — reserved, independent, quiet, but also fierce and brash and determined. The writing is tight and almost flawless, the characters all just as interesting, diverse and integral as the next.

Her closest friend is her wolfdog, Girl, and her memories of their time together on the island. The book moves between past and present seamlessly and regularly, taking the reader on a journey through history so that by the end, we feel like we’ve been living on Wolfe Island for centuries.

The book is atmospheric and effortless, exploring themes of fragility, flight, survival, independence and adulthood. It’s about people who runs from their problems, and the people left behind.

“Summertime. When I wake early I can pretend things haven’t changed. I wait for this moment: first light arriving on the plain of Wife Island like a can of paint-wash water of clearest watermelon pink flung in an enormous delicate rush.”

It takes a bit of time to warm to this book — the writing feels sparse at the beginning, and the characters a little dry and distant. But over time, the book finds its rhythm and the horrors of the world scarily reflect our own and you find yourself drawn to the characters and their journey.

Recommended for fans of literary fiction, and character-driven stories. Recommended for regular readers.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wolfe Island
Lucy Treloar
September 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clearsighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide ‘physical, intellectual and moral training’ which will equip its inmates to become ‘honorable and honest men’.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear ‘out back’. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King’s ringing assertion, ‘Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.’ But Elwood’s fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood’s idealism and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead is an extraordinary literary novel based on a real reform school in Florida during the Jim-Crow-era that operated for 111 years and destroyed the lives of thousands of children.

In the acknowledgements page, Colson Whitehead talks about the inspiration for this book — the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. Archaeology students at the University of South Florida dug up an area surrounding the school and uncovered a secret graveyard. The students worked to identify the remains of countless students who had been tortured, raped, mutilated, and then buried beneath the ground.

In The Nickel Boys, the institution is called Nickel Academy, with two segregated establishments — one campus is for coloured boys, and the other is for white boys.

Protagonist Elwood Curtis was abandoned by his mother and left in the care of his loving, compassionate grandmother Harriet. He’s now in high school. He’s driven, intelligent, and he has his eyes set on graduating from the local community college. But one mistake — hitchhiking — lands him in Nickel Academy. The driver, Rodney, has stolen the car they’re riding in, and Elwood is considered guilty.

“There were three of them. The biggest one he’d seen last night, the boy who looked too old to attend Nickel. The giant was named Griff; in addition to his mature appearance, he was broad-chested and hunched like a big brown bear. Griff’s daddy, it was said, was on a chain gang in Alabama for murdering his mother, making his meanness a handed-down thing.”

Set in 1960s Florida, the book highlights segregation and the racism that was rife during that time. A black person could be arrested for not giving way to a white person on the sidewalk. Black people did things for free, and white people benefited.

Nickel Academy is technically not a prison, and boys usually don’t stay longer than 1-2 years in the place, but it is a nightmare, hellish place to live. When boys misbehave, they’re plucked from their beds in the middle of the night and taken to a former work shed called the White House.

Here, boys are strapped into a three-foot-long contraption called Black Beauty, and beaten. They’re whipped, stretched, and abused. The boys’ screams can be heard by everyone in Nickel Academy. Additionally, ‘out back’ is where the cruel and vicious staff take the boys who they plan to murder and bury beneath the ground.

“He spent another five days in the hospital, then it was back with the other Nickel boys. School and work. He was one of them now in many ways, including his embrace of silence. When his grandmother came to visit, he couldn’t tell her what he saw when Dr. Cooke removed the dressings and he walked the cold tile to bathroom.”

Whitehead is skilled at moving back and forth in time, seamlessly. We learn more about Elwood and his family as we progress through the novel. There are snippets here and there of his former life, his mother and father’s lives, and his childhood with his grandmother.

The prose is very elegant, lean and pared back — it’s a short book at 200 pages, and quick to read. The plot is riveting, drawing you in and refusing to let you go. I adore both Elwood and his best friend Turner, who are so different but find each other within the horrors of Nickel Academy.

Reading The Nickel Boys has encouraged me to purchase The Underground Railroad, which I had not gotten around to reading yet.

The Nickel Boys is one of my favourite reads of the year. As hard as the subject matter is to read at times, the writing is fantastic and eloquent, the characters larger-than-life. Highly recommended.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead
July 2019
Hachette Book Publishers

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