Yumna Kassab, Australiana

 

- This novel is an absolute gem. I became more and more sucked in the more I read and re-read its plain, unadorned, yet beguiling prose.

- There are five sections that make up this intriguing book, all of them linked in thematic, echoing ways.

- We are in rural NSW in the Tamworth/Gunnedah region, and in the middle of a drought. Cliches abound, and that's the point. Ordinary people of the town are the focus and they are exquisitely ordinary and, on the surface at least, exquisitely boring. The emptiness and banality of their lives comes from a desperation and meaninglessness. Marriage and child rearing are tough. It's all bleak in tone. All the kids in the town and bored and rebellious. 

- But while there may be a level of civility on the surface, there is evil underneath that sometimes erupts. That's a familiar theme in Australian literature and our rural noir crime genre. This book is appropriately titled Australiana.    

- All the chapters are very short apart from one. They build a world of kindness, tragedy, fantasy, thuggery, darkness and death. 

- In the long chapter (40 pages) a young farmer tells his personal story of rural life and his lifelong friendship with Barry. They 'escaped' to Sydney as young men. Barry stayed but our narrator returned to the farm after ten years. He turns out to be a self-important prick and a know-all. Kassab gets the tone exactly right. He’s anti-city, dopey, a provincial cliche. In the city, he proclaims, you go for weeks without seeing a horizon or a sunset. Banalities and truisms abound. Barry's story, unfortunately, turns out to be tragic. Darkness underneath, again. It's a hugely enjoyable chapter. 

- There are other stories, all resonant and hinting at larger meanings. There’s death all round in this harsh, anti-human place. Away from people, away from rules, the world takes on a deranged quality.

- The concluding chapter is about a bushranger, Frederick Ward, who became a legend in the region. Better a story than the plain old truth. Give me a story any day. Kassab asks, and it's her final question: Why do we idolise bushrangers in this country? What does that tell you about the psyche of the nation?

All the elements that make up this novel add up to a magnificent read. Highly recommended.

(I was born and brought up in Broken Hill. I escaped to Sydney at the age of 16, the most liberating thing I've ever done in my life, so no wonder I related to this novel).