Some of the best current writing comes from Africa and its diaspora. Lucy Mushita lives in France and Australia,but in her first novel looks back at her birthplace,Zimbabwe. In the last century,the white colonisers,called kneeless (vasinamabvi),ruled. They impoverished the country,and traditional patriarchy meant the women suffered most. Chinongwa was only nine,but her family had little choice but to sell her into marriage. She was walked between villages,fruitlessly,until an act of calculating pity made her a secondary wife. The husband and his child-bride both bitterly resented their union. It produced 10 children but no happiness. The story may be grim,but it has a compelling power. Chinongwa may have been a chattel,but she still had agency and voice. And at the end of the novel she achieved her personal independence,though not that of her nation.
Orphan Road
Andrew Nette,Down&Out,$31.99
The hard-boiled genre novel in Australia is as old as A. E. Martin’s 1944The Misplaced Corpse,with splendid PI Rosie Bosanky. Peter Corris followed,but the tradition is intermittent.
The latest carrier of the baton is Andrew Nette,with his series detective,the colourful Chance. More Garry Disher’s Wyatt than investigator,trouble follows Chance like a drover’s dog. Here a modern crime,real estate extortion,links to the famed Great Bookie Robbery,and a fortune in hot diamonds. Into the mix is thrown the Vietnam War,skullduggery from police and the CIA,even the mob. The crime arises organically from its surroundings,ever-seedy Melbourne. The motion is frenetic,alliances made and broken,with doses of violence. To my mind it needed another chapter or so,but that might have lost the narrative completely.
Burn
Melanie Saward,Affirm,$34.99
Writing adolescent boys is difficult. When they are also Indigenous,marginalised and with psychological problems,the debut novelist should surely beware. Yet Melanie Saward admirably creates a credible central character in Andrew. Against his background,a boy’s view of Tasmania and Brisbane,he struggles to survive socially and emotionally. The book could be aimed at the young adult market,but school libraries would object to the realism of bongs and teen sex. Rather it is pitched as a psychological thriller,Andrew being also a firebug. What triggers him is complex,the author’s research propelling rather than slowing the narrative. Where the book seems less assured is in the use of thriller techniques,particularly in the latter stages. These are tricky even for seasoned authors. OverallBurn is far more than promising,and the reader awaits the next book along.
The Seventh Son
Sebastian Faulks,Hutchinson Heinemann,$34.99