Book club ideas
AS MASON COOLEY SAID, “READING GIVES US SOMEPLACE TO GO WHEN WE HAVE TO STAY WHERE WE ARE” AND NOW IS THE TIME TO PICK UP A GOOD BOOK.
THE SHIFTING LANDSCAPE
Katherine Kovacic, Echo, $29.99
Fraud, theft and murder exists in the Melbourne art world. Even so, Kovacic’s amateur sleuth, Alex Clayton, did not expect to find two out of three in the first 24 hours when she was summoned to Victoria’s Western District to inspect and value a magnificent collection of pastoral paintings. Kovacic started out as a vet and moved on to art history. Her research looks at the human/ animal bond through the eyes of artists. Although rural art plays a big role in the plot of her new novel, the wolfhound Hogarth features on almost every page. Endearing though he is, maybe in the next Clayton mystery he could be less of a scene-stealer.
Kovacic captures a combination of arrogance and bloody mindedness among the squattocracy, which is nevertheless beguiling. Harry, the Aboriginal estate manager, tells Clayton of sophisticated eel farming in the area, which dates back 3000 years and the failure of settlers to appreciate what they’d heedlessly destroyed. The plot centres on the death of a dynastic martinet and the disappearance of a von
Guerard masterpiece, precious not only as art but as footnote to an ugly aspect of early settlement. This is the third Clayton murder mystery. I now have the earlier two on order at the library.
LIFE IN A BOX
Sarah Jane Adams, Murdoch Books, $39.99
The cover is a magnet. There she is, white haired and swaggering. Her coat in orange, gold and neon pink shouts at you. Her boots, bought in the mid-’90s, are to die for. Adams describes herself as an antique dealer, designer of jewellery, traveller and model. As I’m currently moving house and throwing all my stuff away (no room) I savoured each Adams oddity, usually exquisite, which she’s managed to hang on to.
There are hundreds, presented in the form of a catalogue. She’s kept childhood souvenirs and finds from travels in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Turkey, Japan and the US.
She quit a house fit for a queen in Sydney’s Enmore and let go a couple of lovely relationships. The strange combination of keeping and jettisoning casts a potent spell.
TRUGANINI
Cassandra Pybus, Allen & Unwin, $32.99
Truganini, as many Australians already know, was a Nuenonne woman who lived on Bruny Island. When she died in 1876 she was the last of her clan in Tasmania and according to popular belief, the last full-blooded Aboriginal in Tasmania. Pybus had no idea that she was connected to her when the historian Lyndall Ryan made contact.
Ryan’s research revealed that in 1829 Cassandra’s great-great-grandfather Richard Pybus, was granted the 1036 hectares that encompassed the Nuenonne’s traditional territory. His family would have encountered Truganini wandering among the forests that were once hers. The Mitchell Library had extensive diaries written by the missionary George Augustus Robinson. They were all but
indecipherable because of Robinson’s handwriting, but Pybus hired a specialist in the field and thus the Truganini archive has been dramatically expanded. Robinson used Truganini as a translator, guide and negotiator. She dived for shellfish to feed Robinson’s team. In his opinion, he was a surrogate father. Whether Robinson was right about this is debatable because she escaped many times and each time was recaptured. Her value was unique and not only Robinson prized her. The whalers and the males of every tribe the missionary team visited immediately singled her out for attention which she repulsed only if the predator was violent. The Brits had destroyed options for harmonious coexistence. When the clans retaliated Governor George Arthur promised to make the island safe for settlers. Robinson became an agent for the British Government. He managed to corral all but a handful of Bruny’s inhabitants and exile them, mostly to Flinders Island. The description of one expedition shows Truganini’s significance. Truganini had contracted syphilis from whalers and as a result her legs were often swollen and painful. Nevertheless, she and two female friends made a raft and swam 29 people, one by one, across the icy river. They ferried the dogs and baggage too. After her exploits she suffered a severe fit. Says Pybus “the wonder is that the whole experience did not kill her”. The diaries of Jo Orton are the source for the scenes from 1841 when Truganini was arrested for accessory to the murder of two whalers. She was released. Robinson explained to the judge that women were innocent because they could not think for themselves.
Pybus’ superb account has a place in every Australian home. The lonely figure we know from Thomas Bock’s excellent drawing in the British
Museum comes to life and from Robinson’s detailed text we see white people through her eyes.
THE CATCH
Mick Herron,
John Murray Press, $22.99
The Times called him “the greatest comic writer of spy fiction” and every Spring I look forward to a new novel about what happens to MI5 agents who stuff up, the so-called ‘slow horses’.
Herron insists that he just makes it up as he goes along and has no inside knowledge of Britain’s intelligence service. The Catch features Prince Andrew up to no good. Apparently. But the media has fallen for cleverly constructed fake news and once it’s all nicely cleared up HM the Queen is clandestinely grateful to MI5. Just a nod and a wink of course, the facts implied rather than stated. However, the focus of the story is the efforts of the Milkman (MI5’S nursemaid to disgraced or merely exhausted agents) simply to survive when Lady Di, head of MI5, selects him as the fall guy in her fiendish plan. It’s a very short book with a very long aftertaste.
MR LOVERMAN
Bernadine Evaristo, Hamish Hamilton, $32.99
In more than 20 years this is the first time I’ve reviewed a novel that isn’t brand new. The staff at my favourite bookshop said it was the perfect long flight read. So I read Evaristo’s bittersweet comedy slowly, leaning back at intervals to firm up new thoughts about a transformation throughout the UK and beyond, which is bad in terms of lost certainties but good because chauvinism — and Barry, Mr Loverman himself, thrums with it — eventually yields to truth. Two septuagenarian Antiguans living in London’s now fashionable East End have been in love since their school days. Morris is ready to come out and issues an ultimatum. Barry has succeeded as a property developer and is very, very rich. He has a disappointed wife Carmel, a strongly feminist daughter and a younger daughter who dreams of fame on the London fashion scene. His adolescent grandson has issues. So there are others to consider.
“It’s not the eighties” says Morris. No, the public couldn’t give a damn, but Carmel’s piety and hurt feelings will put a dent in Barry’s massive ego. There’s no dignity in delay.
He must decide one way or another or be forever inauthentic.
GATHERING DARK
Candice Fox, Bantam, $32.99
A new Fox thriller on the doorstep. Drop everything. Kettle on. Kill the phone. This one is the first in a new series. We meet Detective Jessica Sanchez of the Los Angeles Police Department.
She’s a bit different from Fox’s Australian detectives. For a start she owns a $7 million homestead. Long story. The Fox signature trademark shows itself early on — characters you’d hate to be near. Yet on the printed page you first get to know them and then to understand that if we’re lucky enough not to be twitching in agony waiting for a fix or plunging our teeth into a stranger’s jugular vein it’s more likely to be due to where we were born than any virtue or considered choice. Blair, a paediatric surgeon, and Sneak, her almost rabid former cellmate, descend on Sanchez to beg for help.
Sneak’s daughter has disappeared. You’d be forgiven for thinking that wherever she is she’s likely to be better off than in the vicinity of Sneak. However, the plot thickens.