Melissa Manning, Smokehouse.

 

- This is good but it’s not exceptionally good, and no novel that is not exceptionally good should win a major literary prize like the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for fiction as it did, especially given the 2022 shortlist included Jennifer Down's Bodies of Light, a truly magnificent novel.

- Smokehouse is a combination of long and short stories, some strongly linked, others tangentially, and one not at all. Tellingly, in my view, versions of some of the stories have been published previously. 

- The collection is mainly about breakups and divorce and death, the fragility and transience of relationships. It's personal and intimate but it's also very quotidian. There's a profound domesticity about it. The one long story is divided into two parts which bookend the collection. Nora is the main character, and frankly, she's boring. Does she have a life outside her family and small group of friends? No. Does she work? No. Does she have views on the broad spectrum of life and society outside the family home? No. Does she read? No. No wonder she's addicted to biscuits and wine. The author even declines to tell us what year or even decade it is, other than that there's no internet or mobile phones anywhere in sight.

- The men that feature in most of the stories are very male and outdoorsy. Tom, Nora's first husband and the father of her two daughters, is very blokey indeed. He's all pubs, beers, and mates, and basically an ugly piece of shit. He travels from their Tasmanian country town to Sydney all the time ‘on business’ (yeah, right!). Nora is left to suffer the suffocating small town experience.

- Eventually she starts an affair with Ollie, a neighbour and owner of a smokehouse, then tells Tom she wants to leave. Of course Tom, true to form, kicks her out and won’t let her see her daughters at all. Until eventually shared custody is legally granted.

- Most of the other stories are very short and slight, providing a bit of background information on Nora's neighbours. One of the stories, however, Chainsaw, is powerful, and another one, Nao, actually focuses on a major world event. Refreshing.