What I’m Reading Brian Falkner
The book I am currently reading is Jasper Jones, an Australian classic by Craig Silvey. In truth I just finished it, but I turned right around and started again. I do that sometimes with books I really admire. It is part of being a writer, I guess. I read the book once as a reader, and a second time as a writer, admiring the craft, the dialogue, the character development and the structure. You miss that stuff the first time through because you are too engrossed in the story, and that is the way it should be.
It’s a fascinating story about a young man in a remote Australian town who is asked by the town’s outcast, Jasper Jones – a kind of Huckleberry Finn character – to help conceal the death of the daughter of the shire president. Just stunning, on every level; in parts shocking, terrifying and hilarious. And the writing! Such beautiful use of the English language.
Prior to Jasper Jones I was reading another Australian novel, recently made into a film, The Dry, by Jane Harper. Harper is another author, like Silvey, who manages to make the Australian countryside a character in the story, which is a riveting murder mystery with characters so real they just about jump out of the book at you.
And my third book is not a novel but a picture book, Oswald Messweather, written by Dimity Powell, who seems to touch on subjects that in other hands would seem worthy or didactic, and to make them heartbreakingly real and emotional, in a way that is accessible to both children and adults. It is beautifully illustrated by Siobhan McVey.