Book reviews
Book reviews
Ultimo Press
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Book title: Left Behind by Martine Kropkowski
Reviewer: K. T. Major
Left Behind is a story about four campers – two couples – who arrive on K’gari (formerly Fraser Island) but find their holiday fraught with simmering interpersonal and relationship tensions. The first half of the book is presented in an ‘omniscient’ point-of-view—the reader is allowed insight into each of the four characters’ inner worlds. Then, three of the campers go missing as a tropical cyclone approaches, and the second half of the book switches to Annabelle’s point of view. The only camper left behind, she struggles to search for her husband Luke and friends Des and Julianni while the natural world disintegrates around her from the impact of the storm.
Kropkowski’s command of nature writing is admirable. Her prose shimmers with detail – from the shapeshifting sand dunes and beaches of K’gari, to the curves and spikes of the rainforest canopy, to the wildlife teeming on land and sea. The interplay of interactions in this book reminds me of Liane Moriarty, in the style and exploration of human relationships—each look, gesture, and decision gradually revealing a tapestry of their life and history.
It is the second half of the book that had me wondering whether this book plays more in the realm of speculative fiction, rather than squarely in crime. The narrative in the second half has overtones of magical realism; horror, even, in the evocative descriptions of nature’s destruction, and the myriad possibilities manifested by Annabelle’s fracturing consciousness and grasp on reality.
Kropkowski is a Brisbane-based journalist, author and researcher, whose biography highlights that her research is centred on how fiction gives voice to women through the narrativising of crime and gendered violence. This is realised through the multiple facets of the narrative presented on the page: each event is entirely plausible through the lens of Annabelle, and it is her—the seemingly unreliable narrator—who gets to tell the tale.
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Reviewer’s bio:
Born in Singapore, KT Major is an emerging writer based in Dharawal Country. She writes crime fiction, literary fiction, essays and poetry. KT’s stories have won awards, including most recently the Resident’s Prize for Short Story in the 2023 Sutherland Shire Literary Competition, and the Everymind Award in Grieve 2024. A WestWords Academy alum, KT was awarded the 2024 WestWords-Varuna Emerging Writers’ Residency and longlisted for the 2024 Furphy Literary Award. She has been published in several anthologies, magazines and journals, including Grieve, Emergence by SBS, BAD Western Sydney, The Big Issue, Verandah, Splinter, Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, and ZineWest.
Book title: In a Common Hour by Sita Walker
Reviewer: Joanne Macias
In a world where we are seemingly more connected and exposed, In a Common Hour looks at the hidden facets of a person, and how there will always be more than meets the eye. Set at Parks State High, we are introduced to a series of teachers and students who all have varied interests and secrets. Set within an hour-long lunch break at the school, the novel is broken up into timed moments across this potent hour.
The novel explores the undercurrent of what goes on in a school, where students are learning who they are, what they want to be; and teachers who want to hold on to a part of what they know, even if the world around them has changed. Explored through flashbacks of multiple characters, we begin to learn how the main protagonist, Paul Bush or ‘Bushie’ as he is affectionately known, ends up in his current predicament: each trauma is slowly exposed layer by layer.
We face the reality of just how connected we really are. Components of the story cleverly unravel for different characters at different stages of their life. By weaving together multiple character histories, we learn that the secrets we keep can have devastating consequences when we decide to face them alone.
Sita Walker has created a nuanced world that shows us how the voices in our head are much harsher than what the world actually thinks, especially in our formative years. In a Common Hour lets the reader get lost in the lives of all the characters, with each one offering a touch of humanity.
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Reviewer’s bio: