All members of the group were at Cherrie’s city pad for the May meeting – and that included one new but rather swollen bloody knee that Megan brought along with her, and a puzzling pressure problem that accompanied McLassie. So of course we all swung in with our (not so) well informed medical opinions and suggestions on knees, necks, ears, etc before we embarked on our evenings’ journey into the written word.
Cherrie’s book was first, and here is her erudite and unedited background information (thanks Cherrie):
Evie Wyld b. 16/6/1980.
This is a difficult book to read, both for its construction and content. The violence herein brought me visceral dread.
To help tease out the stories, on the second reading I read Section I right through, then Section II, etc. Wyld abandons any linear foundation in her construction of the novel. I tried to give background to the setting on the Firth of Forth, the features of North Berwick and the lowering Bass Rock, representing dark male dominance in a feminine sea, (thanks to Mog, for that). (Note from blogger - nice little evasion of the more direct phallus symbol!)
Wyld’s Grandfather’s 1st wife died of TB, leaving two small traumatised little boys. Within a short time he had married a tall, intelligent woman, (who was never in a position to use that intelligence), who was not a motherly sort of person to the two boys. Evie remembered a grey-haired alcoholic. whom she found hard and scary. When her grandmother and father died in quick succession, she inherited a photo album and there was Bass Rock with her father pictured with it, just as she herself had been pictured on summer holidays in the big house.
The house itself is almost another character. Huge, lonely, ghosts. Evie, her husband and infant son had to leave their last flat because all three perceived a presence in that house which did not feel comfortable. Whereas Evie/Viv’s generation has used cutting to express anger, Ruth systematically broke wedding presents and other objects, parts of the setting within this place which Ruth finds hostile.
Talking about the processes of writing the novel, Wyld originally had another 30+ voices, including the three in this book, and these three “stuck”. She started with Ruth. Then came Sarah, accused of being a witch. A ploy at that time to deal with “different” women, clever women, outspoken women. In Nth Berwick there is St Andrews Old Kirk, where women were accused of being witches - they were executed in Edinburgh. With the witch -hunt in the story of Sarah, came a change to a faster paced flight thru the forest. The story is told by a young man who is just assuming a manly role; the language here is set in that time.
Viv is based on herself. 40-ish, no outward signs of having made it- no money, no stellar job, no man. Viv can be quite self-lacerating, but the possibility of a relationship with Vince opened up humour and some lightness.
Evie Wyld’s 1st two novels circled the theme of men’s violence. The 1st wrote about 2 men unable to realise the expectations of men, the 2nd is about a woman who is dealing with her brutalisation by men. In this 3rd book, some think that it depicts all men as bad, but there are the Uncles, Christopher and Michael, who themselves have suffered dreadfully at boarding school, where the patriarchal institution has wreaked havoc, particularly for Viv’s father, Michael. Evie’s own father and uncles were sent to BS @ 8, where they suffered corporal punishment, and her uncles were damaged by that. The train scene where Viv’s uncle Christopher was tempted to kill an abuser really happened to one of her uncles. He regretted not doing it. In the UK, the murder of Sarah Everard by a policeman has unlocked a huge anxiety in women. Evie spoke about Sherele Moody’s Femicide Map of Australia on which every red heart represents a murdered child or woman....and if possible a little is written about each victim. Viv’s friend Maggie talks about imagining every single abused female being visible together. Wyld also spoke about the treatment of women in psychiatric institutions.
Wyld spoke about using Jim Crace’s idea of minimal research and giving the reader just enough to fill in the gaps for themselves.
The novel is character driven without long descriptive passages. Wyld says her writing is becoming more sparse. She has no plot or plan when she starts. Rather she accrues ideas, characters etc around a starting point, goes off in many directions with different stories, then starts to string the novel together. When the novel is coming together well she has it read by her husband, a literary agent, her agent and then her editor.
Her next book will be more simple.
Q: How does she have such a strong affinity w Australia?
A: Nostalgia. Never lived in Australia for more than a year at a time...childhood memories are so vivid. She thinks she could never write a novel about London. Hard to get her brain within it.
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What a great start – especially the revelation on how to
read the book. So simples! Yet we all
read it page by page, and agreed it was a struggle to keep track of plots,
timelines, characters. (Hmm - thinking and pondering - is there a link between the recent big shift in the construction of novels and the availability of digital books?)
The general consensus was that it was a troubling encounter and took us on a difficult journey. We went into many dark corners and it was only for some of us that the light shone through it. We split between those who thought it a very unfair exercise in demonising males; those who thought it vividly portrayed male control, coercion and violence against females; and there were some on the fence. Alcohol, drugs and depression played around the edges of many of the characters, hinting at the impact on the frailer characters in the book (cause or effect?). A few of us took to Vivienne, others not so much; all liked Ruth; and most were puzzled by Sarah and Maggie. Of the males, as Cherrie mentioned, the step sons Michael and particularly Christopher came through as non-monsters, along with John, but otherwise it was a troubling ride into testosterone, violence and control.
No scores were offered but given the extent of robust discussion about the book, this blog(ger) will record it as a win but not a triumph.
So our slightly shattered group then moved on to Moggie’s selection, Lowitja – the biography of Lowitja O’Donoghue by Stuart Rintoul. Moggie explained it was an authorised biography which she selected after hearing the author speak at Writers Week this year. It was written in a very moving and personal way and painted a portrait of a remarkable Australian First Nations woman. As a member of the ‘stolen generation’, when at 2 years of age she was taken to Colebrook Home from her family home in Indulkana SA, her efforts to reunite with her mother after 30 years evoked great sadness – yet it clearly made her a stronger woman. This journey was partly to counter media criticism (by the dreaded A Bolt - I won’t spell him out!) who alleged she wasn’t Aboriginal – but it probably served to make a wise person even wiser and more determined.
Our evening ended with Mog’s moist, delicious carrot cake, coffee, tea and natter (with 2 or 3 natters going on at the same time). As we departed, meeting dates were raised and consensus reached on the second Wednesday of each (alternate) month – so the next meeting is 7 pm on Wednesday 14 July at Kathy’s place (46 Frederick Street, Maylands). Hot off the press is the book selections:
Megan -Infinite Splendours by Sofia Laguna
Kathy – The Ripping Tree by Nikki Gemmell
And we will anxiously wait to see who bakes (because according to this observer, that natter was unresolved - but maybe it was on the journey home).
Finally, for anyone interested at this link you will find interviews with Evie Wyld and Nikki Gemmell about their respective books. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-book-show/episodes/
