JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Fallow by Daniel Shand

Two brothers elude a press witching by hiding out in the remote wilds of highland Scotland. As they travel, they move from one disturbing scenario to the next, eventually involving themselves with a bizarre religious cult. The power between the brothers begins to shift, and we realise there is more to their history.

One of them is a murderer. But it’s the other you have to watch out for…

Fallow is a darkly comic novel about the evolving relationship between two brothers — Paul and Mikey — and the terrible crime that both of them were involved in when they were young boys. This is a tense psychological thriller, deliberately making the reader feel uneasy and anxious about what is to come.

“My main concern that morning had been the tube of newspaper jammed into Sam’s armpit. I wasn’t able to make out the title but if it was a tabloid then Mikey was almost certainly somewhere inside.”

The cover of Fallow is incredibly striking, with orange and brown colours and a single image of a stag in an open field. It’s an inviting book, and I was intrigued. Fallow is under three hundred pages, so it doesn’t take too long to read the entire thing — in fact, I imagine some readers would be able to get through it in one sitting.

Fallow explores unreliable narration, manipulation and control. Paul lies and twists his explanation of events in order to control Mikey. In some parts of the novel, Micky commits horrific acts because he thinks he needs to, even though he doesn’t. Paul has lied to him and made Mikey fearful, to the point where Mikey has committed a crime for no reason.

And then, because of this, Paul has yet another thing that he can hold over Mikey. It’s a twisted relationship because Mikey feels guilty, but also confused. And over the course of the novel, he starts feeling indebted to Paul, even though he doesn’t need to.

“Mikey reached over and got him by the head and neck and I pulled his legs out from beneath him and we held his body and pushed and carried him out into the deeper water…we held the body until the water held it by itself.”

The strengths are Daniel’s writing. The prose flows so well and the imagery is beautiful. Just one sentence can say so much about the relationship between these two brothers; Daniel Shand has a real talent for using as few words as possible to convey the most meaning.

There are a few things about this novel that I know some readers won’t like. The pace is deliberately slow, to draw out the characterisation and to force the reader to anticipate what’s coming next. The plot is also a little stagnant, so there are a few times in the book where I was wondering where the story is going and why certain events were important to the overall plot.

But, the writing is beautiful and the two main characters are incredibly well-crafted and three-dimensional. Daniel Shand has done an excellent job of characterisation through actions, attitudes and dialogue.

I recommend Fallow to literary fiction lovers. Yes, there’s a fair bit of crime in the book. But it’s not your average crime or thriller novel. It’s a slow build, and it’s more character driven than plot driven. Some of you might be wondering what the point of it all is, but the ending to this novel is just extraordinary. It was surprising but also satisfying. This is a novel you have to stick with until the end.

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

Fallow
Daniel Shand
January 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Wimmera by Mark Brandi

In the long, hot summer of 1989, Ben and Fab are best friends.

Growing up in a small country town, they spend their days playing cricket, yabbying in local dams, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab’s dad hits him or how the sudden death of Ben’s next-door neighbour unsettled him. Almost teenagers, they already know some things are better left unsaid.

Then a newcomer arrived in the Wimmera. Fab reckoned he was a secret agent and he and Ben staked him out. Up close, the man’s shoulders were wide and the veins in his arms stuck out, blue and green. His hands were enormous, red and knotty. He looked strong. Maybe even stronger than Fab’s dad. Neither realised the shadow this man would cast over both their lives.

Twenty years later, Fab is still stuck in town, going nowhere but hoping for somewhere better. Then a body is found in the river, and Fab can’t ignore the past any more.

Wimmera is a literary crime novel set in a small town with a big secret. Ben and Fab are best friends, and the book explores their friendship in various stages of their lives, from when they’re young boys to when they’re older. The two boys share a secret that they don’t speak of.

The novel is broken up into three parts. The first part takes place during the hot summer of 1989, when Ben gets a new neighbour, Ronnie. Daisy Wolfe and her family have just recently left town after fourteen year old Daisy hung herself on the clothesline in the backyard. Ronnie moves into their house and Ben starts doing some odd jobs around his place as a way to make extra money.

The second part of the book is predominantly set twenty years later; Fab is still living in Wimmera noticeably unsettled by what happened the last few times he saw Ben. The reader is left in the dark, because part one ends on a rather abrupt note, and then part two picks up twenty years later. Ben doesn’t appear to be living in Wimmera anymore, and Fab’s life seems to be stagnant. As the reader, you start speculating what happened at the end of that summer in 1989.

The final part of the book follows a police investigation about a body that is found in the local river. Fab is called in for questioning.

Mark Brandi has a Criminal Justice degree and used to work for the Victorian Department of Justice, so a lot of the procedural and legal aspects of the book no doubt came from his own personal experience.

Brandi captures the atmosphere of a small town really well. Gossip gets around fast and there seems to be a darkness building in the town. Wimmera also feels like a town where lots of people talk, but no one seems to ask any questions. Daisy commits suicide and people seem fast to move on from it, especially after the Wolfe family move away from town. When Ben goes to a party and people are gossiping about why they think Daisy committed suicide, there seems to be no sense of urgency to find out the real reason. Rather, everyone goes about living their lives. This contributes to the overall melancholic feel of the book – you feel like these characters are stuck in this town and that they’re never going to leave. And then when you move on to part two, you realise that Fab is indeed stuck in this town.

“He tried to imagine Daisy’s body hanging from that old steel clothesline, creaking as it shifted in the wind. He could see her dark eyes and her legs, perfectly white, swinging in the air.”

The writing is fantastic. It’s lyrical, evocative and vivid and the Brandi allows us to really understand these characters without actually telling us a whole lot about them. Through their circumstances, and how they act in certain situations, we learn all about the boys and the nature of their friendship. Fab’s dad hits him, but Ben doesn’t really say anything about it to Fab or anyone else, and Ben’s new neighbour Ronnie really unsettles him, but Fab doesn’t trust his instinct enough to do anything about it (or ask Ben about it). At times, both characters turn a blind eye to what they don’t want to discuss.

“The first time Ben went to Ronnie’s house was to cut the grass. It was Saturday and he played cricket in the morning at Great Western and they won…When Ben got home after cricket, his mum told him Ronnie had come by and he’d have to go over there after lunch.”

The first part of the book is most definitely the strongest section of Wimmera. I actually wanted to find out more about that summer, and felt like Mark didn’t develop the boys’ friendship as much as he could have. I understand what his intention was. He wanted to end part one on a rather gut-wrenching moment, but when I started part two I was actually quite disappointed with where the book went and I would’ve liked to go back to the summer of 1989. The transition between Ben’s story in 1989, to Fab’s story twenty years later, felt rather disjointed.

Ronnie was a predictable character, and I was not surprised at all when he and Ben’s ‘friendship’ became something more. I personally felt like the police investigation and the resulting trial was rushed and was too quick, and that part of the book should’ve either been bulked up and developed further, or just cut out of the book completely. There would’ve been more suspense and intrigue if the body was found but we didn’t find out absolutely everything that happened on the night of that character’s death. The book was building up really slowly and Mark Brandi was drawing the reader in with all this mystery, and then I hit part three and all of a sudden it’s moving at 100 miles per hour and the pacing doesn’t quite match the rest of the book.

I recommend this book to people who love crime fiction. This may be quite a literary book, but at the heart of the story is a mysterious death and Mark pulls you in right from the first page. People who loved The Dry by Jane Harper or Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey will love Wimmera.

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

Wimmera
Mark Brandi
July 2017
Hachette Book Publishers

The End of the Day by Claire North

Charlie has a new job. He gets to travel, and he meets interesting people, some of whom are actually pleased to see him.

It’s good to have a friendly face, you see. At the end.

But the end of all things is coming. Charlie’s boss and his three associates are riding out, and it’s Charlie’s job to go before.

Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. He never knows which.

The End of the Day is an adult fiction novel about The Harbinger of Death, also known as Charlie. He meets everyone — but only once. You might meet him in a hospital, in a warren, or at the scene of a traffic accident. Then again, you might meet him at the North Pole — he gets everywhere, our Charlie. Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. He never knows which.

You see, Charlie is the person who visits you before Death does. Sometimes it’s because you’re going to die, but sometimes it’s because he needs to gift you something. In one instance, Charlie had to gift someone a helmet. That person then wore the helmet and it was the only thing that kept him alive when he was hit by a car. And so Death passed him on by, no longer needing to collect him.

Charlie learns a lot from his new job as the Harbinger of Death. He sees new places and learns so much about the world — he opens his eyes. He is also sees the horrors of the world. In one part of the book, he is in Africa with a female comedian and a group of men approach them, intending to sexually assault her. They get away, but when Charlie reports it to the police, they pretend it didn’t happen and they make excuses for the man.

“You don’t know much about our country, do you?” breathed the older man, not unkindly. “That’s all right. Not many people do. They talk about this continent — Africa — as if it was one big place, as if your Scotland was the same as Greece. It’s Africa, they say, it’s just how Africa is.”

The End of the Day is quite poetic and lyrical, with shortened sentences and experimentation of punctuation. There are almost 100 chapters in this book, with some chapters only being half a page or less. It allows the reader to go through the book quickly, reading the story in short bursts.

The novel is broken up into nine parts, each separated an even amount. I found this quite useful, because in addition to the chapters, breaking the book up into parts allowed me to easily bookmark where I was up to and come back to it. Each part of the book really focused on a different aspect of Charlie’s life, so if you took some time between reading each part, it wouldn’t matter. You’d still be able to follow what was happening.

“A man lay on the ice.
He lay like one sleeping, a peaceful child, his knees tucked in, his head resting on his hands, his eyes closed. He was, Charlie was absolutely certain, dead.”

Charlie forms his own questions on his journey. What is death? Why is death? What role does he really play in death? A few times in the novel, Charlie is kidnapped and asked those questions. He can’t really answer, because he’s still struggling to understand it himself.

The End of the Day is a novel to be savoured — the writing is beautiful and the characterisation thick with layers. There’s definitely more at play here. The book is making a comment on the world, and the rapid decline of it. The book is making a social commentary about all the different aspects of the world and all the things that impact it negatively, from Death to War to Pestilence to Famine. There’s a Harbinger for all of them, and Charlie crosses paths with them too in the novel.

“Rock far rock far
still far
near now?
near yet far
the ice roars the ice is breaking the ice is breaking beneath your feet walk and
a thundering behind, the world growing short again, the collapse chasing them as they moved”

I really loved this novel, but it is an investment for readers. It’s long and it requires a fair bit extra to unpack it — more than your usual fiction novel. Read this if you love your literary fiction. Read this is if you’re looking for something that’s just a little bit different (in both plot and writing structure).

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

The End of the Day
Claire North
April 2017
Hachette Publishers

Eleanor by Jason Gurley

Jason Gurley’s Eleanor is a literary fantasy novel that follows the lives of identical twins Eleanor and Esmeralda, whose lives are affected not only by misery, tragedy and unlikely circumstances, but they are moulded by otherworldly, fantastical events.

Don’t be discouraged by the fact that Eleanor is classed as a fantasy novel. At first I was deterred and didn’t know what to expect. But Jason Gurley has constructed wonderful prose and a lot of this novel is set in a contemporary, American town.

The novel travels across a few different time periods so that the reader can understand numerous tragedies that befell the Witt family. At the beginning of the book, we’re introduced to a young five year old girl called Eleanor, who’s mother enters the ocean for an evening swim and does not resurface. But the novel is not about this Eleanor, but her granddaughter, also named Eleanor.

Years later, in 1985, the granddaughter Eleanor is in a car accident alongside her mother Agnes and her twin sister Esmerelda. Her twin sister is unfortunately killed, and over the next eight years, Agnes’ guilt, resentment and shame drives her to become a withdrawn, alcoholic mother who blames Eleanor for the death of Esmerelda.

What begins as a beautiful, heartbreaking coming-of-age novel about Eleanor taking care of her sick mother and trying desperately to still live a normal life soon becomes quite a different novel. Eleanor’s life is disrupted when she starts disappearing in front of her family and friends, losing time as she is transported to another world. In this other world, Eleanor meets Mea, who lives in a fish bowl where she can see all of time and space. The reader is also introduced to The Keeper, a woman who holds omnipotent power over a grey forest and resents Eleanor for invading her domain.

At first, Eleanor’s disappearance and transportation to these other worlds seems to be conceived by an unrestrained imagination. But as the reader delves further into the book and the complex make up of the family timeline, we realise that Eleanor really is being transported to a ‘limbo’ world in which her sister Esmerelda ended up when she was killed in the car accident eight years earlier.

Jason Gurley has crafted a dysfunctional family with smooth, easy to read prose. Eleanor’s family is fractured over the eight years since Esmerelda’s death, and when Eleanor is unknowingly transported out of her contemporary, ordinary world into the strange and dreamlike world that her sister now inhabits, she is confused and doesn’t know what is happening to her. She is injured quite significantly every time she is transported back to her world, and so much time has passed that she finds it extremely difficult to explain her absences.

Despite being a beautifully written, well-rounded novel, the alternate timelines and the interchange between worlds forms a disjointed narrative. The reader is left confused at times, uncertain about the hidden meaning or significance of certain plot points. Some sections of the novel, particularly the chapters following The Keeper, seem undeveloped and the constant interchange between worlds jolts the reader and disinterests them. The story did feel like it dragged on a little bit, and I found myself wishing it would end about 100 pages before it actually did.

Eleanor is a novel that plays with time, and it explores grief, circumstance, consequences and family. It is certainly an intriguing, daring novel with both literary elements and fantasy fiction tropes. The characters are engaging, dimensional and raw – I’d recommend Eleanor to fantasy readers and also literary fiction readers who aren’t deterred by the fantastical elements woven throughout.

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child’s welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts.

But Fiona’s professional success belies domestic strife. Her husband, Jack, asks her to consider an open marriage and, after an argument, moves out of their house. His departure leaves her adrift, wondering whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability; whether it was not contempt and ostracism she really fears. She decides to throw herself into her work, especially a complex case involving a seventeen-year-old boy whose parents will not permit a lifesaving blood transfusion because it conflicts with their beliefs as Jehovah’s Witnesses. But Jack doesn’t leave her thoughts, and the pressure to resolve the case—as well as her crumbling marriage—tests Fiona in ways that will keep readers thoroughly enthralled until the last stunning page.

I really wanted to like this short novel because it’s written by Ian McEwan, but truthfully, I found it slow and dry.

The main character seems a little devoid of emotion, and maybe that’s the point (her husband wants her blessing to have an affair). But when she meets a child whose parents refuse a life-saving because of their religious beliefs, she still seems to have the personality of a stone.

The story weaves between the apparent breakdown of her marriage and the court case, and the most interesting and engaging part of the entire novel is the during the court case when she has to decide and justify her decision about forcing the boy to have a blood transfusion. Apart from that, the story just seems to plod along with short dialogue and a bit too much description.

The good thing about this novel is that it’s only 200 pages, so it’s easy to finish quite quickly. I’d recommend this novel to literary readers and McEwan fans. As for everybody else, keep in mind that this novel is good and it’s well written, but it’s not a page-turner – I could easily put it down for three days and pick it up again and not have it concern me. This book exists for the literary prose and the moral themes it unearths, not for the thrilling plot or interesting and relatable characters.

My Score: 5/10
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