Fiction

Every migrant has a story. The past two decades have given us accounts of migration to Australia from so many Asian countries, and from so many viewpoints – sad, painful, funny, cynical, mystical – that little more seems left to tell. But now, out of Africa, comes a writer with a new and altogether more terrible tale.

In this collection of short stories from Pierz Newton-John, the author calls upon the suburban familiarity of a garden weed: couch grass, the fast-spreading pest whose rhizomes grow rapidly in a suffocating network, until the area it covers is ‘strangled’ and the custodian must ‘pull up the entire intractable tangle and start again’. This network of affliction that spreads throughout Newton-John’s characters – disaffection, self-denial, drug dependency, turmoil, ambivalence, sheer despair – is handled nimbly by Newton-John, who wields a superb descriptive talent. Each story ends with the dislodging of some kind of rot, or the threat of destruction, because a situation is no longer sustainable.

Hannah Richell’s début novel, Secrets of the Tides, undoubtedly enjoyed a boost in sales when it was named the Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Great Read’ for the month of May. A family drama in the style of Jodi Picoult, Richell’s first foray into the women’s fiction market has proved its author’s marketing savvy. A former professional marketer for Pan Macmillan, Hachette, and Hodder & Stoughton, Richell certainly knows how to pitch a bestseller. Unfortunately, while Richell might know a great story when she sees one, her technique leaves a little to be desired.

Continuously inhabited since at least the sixth century, Delhi is fabled to be the city that was built seven times and razed to the ground seven times. Some believe the word Delhi comes from dehali or threshold, and the city is seen as the gateway to the Great Indian Gangetic plains. In 1912 the British moved their colonial seat of power from Calcutta to New Delhi, which also became the capital of independent India and celebrates its hundredth anniversary this year. It seems apt, then, in 2012, to read about the older Delhi that lies and lurks behind the shining veneer of India’s National Capital Territory, a Delhi that the rising Asian power seems eager to forget and obliterate.

Friday Brown is Vikki Wakefield’s second Young Adult novel, following All I Ever Wanted (2011), and although the protagonists of both are essentially facing the same dilemma – how to escape what they consider to be their own unshakeable destinies – I found this one far more rewarding.

Dystopian fiction has surged in popularity in recent years, with books like The Hunger Games (2008) among the many Young Adult titles being devoured by younger and adult readers alike. There is a danger that the sudden influx of a genre in the marketplace, and the eagerness of authors to get their books into the hands of keen readers, will lead to a drop in the quality of writing, or to more predictable plot lines. The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf sets itself apart. It is a bitingly clever dystopia, highly imaginative. Where other books fall flat, this one stands out as a startling contemporary example of the dystopian genre.

The making of a writer involves more than talent and ambition; perseverance and a thick skin are also prerequisites. The best that can be hoped for from a teaching institution is that potential writers are exposed to new ideas and encouraged to experiment with content and form. The results are seldom perfect, but at least they can prove interesting.