The van Apfel Girls Are Gone, by Felicity McLean

A lowly lab technician in Baltimore, Tikka seems to have moved as far away as possible to escape the childhood tragedy that haunts her. She is certainly not in the US seeking fortune or fame. Recalled home to the Sydney suburbs because of her sister’s illness, Tikka has to acknowledge that she never has and never will escape her guilt and sadness over the disappearance of the three van Apfel girls when she was 11 and her sister 14. Was the creepy teacher involved? Was it the violent religious father? Or did the girls just run away? Twenty years later, it seems no-one will ever know. You can almost smell the gum trees and mangroves as McLean evokes the long hot summer days of an Australian suburban childhood. Outwardly serene and ordinary, secrets and resentments lurk beneath the surface. Discussion and emotions are repressed, so that an event as disturbing as the disappearance of three sisters is even more shocking – not in our backyard! It is a little hard to believe that Tikka and her sister never told anyone what they knew; surely they would have said something? But the reality is that even now there is a taboo on discussing domestic violence and sexual abuse, with a misplaced sense of shame for the victims. There is also a strong culture of not dobbing, especially among kids. So on further reflection it is all too likely that children would keep secrets that haunt them into adulthood.

Shell, by Kristina Olsson

The rather beautiful cover in tones of peach shows a smudgy image of the Opera House, viewed from the sea with gulls swooping around it. There have been some rave reviews of this book, but it turns out that sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. Sydney in 1965; the Opera House is under construction and its architect is courting controversy; Vietnam is heating up and the Federal Government has introduce conscription, with protests growing. Pearl Keogh is a journalist, hauled up by her bootstraps from struggle street – yada yada yada. Despite the clichés she is quite a fascinating character. Her career has been sidelined by her politics (communist); she is racked by guilt about her younger brothers who ran away from an orphanage after the death of their mother. Her drip-fed backstory is interesting; her current motivation and decisions are interesting. It is a pity her story ends abruptly, with no sense of what she will do next. Axel Lindquist is a Swedish glassworker obsessed with Jorn Utzon, whom he has never met despite working on his opus dei. He becomes a borderline stalker as he attempts to get into his hero’s mind. They are an unlikely couple, brought together for the device of the story and for no other discernable reason. The writing style is changeable and frustrating. Past events are referred to in an allusive and elusive manner, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. An example of where it works is with the reasons Pearl’s brothers ran away. It is clear abuse was involved without any need to detail it. An example of where it doesn’t is with Axel’s glasswork; there is no sense of what he is actually creating – and therefore why he is on the project at all – until the very end. This contributes to his lack of substance as a character. Some of the language is overblown, with passages that could be considered poetic, but often read like strings of words on a page with little meaning. Similarly, there are several lists of Sydney harbourside suburbs for no clear reason other than as a tribute to the city.

The Biographer’s Lover, by Ruby J Murray

This is a very Melbourne book, although chunks are set in Geelong and bits in Sorrento. A hand-to-mouth writer is hired to write a biography of an uncelebrated deceased artist, Edna Cranmer, by her daughter, who is determined that her mother will receive the recognition she deserves. Other family members are not keen and provide obstructions to the writer digging into the artist’s life. Chapters alternate between the anonymous biographer and her subject. She describes her own life and troubles at the time of writing the biography in her personal chapters, while uncovering the secrets of Edna’s past in the others. Both stories are fascinating, examining the role of female artists and the career obstacles they face; touching on rape; and looking at the impact of war on women. The biographer chapters occasionally leap ahead 20 years to give hints of what develops from that earlier time. This is sometimes jarring and unnecessarily intrusive – do we really need a preview? The strange name of the biographer’s son is never explained and seems to have been chosen in a clumsy attempt to misdirect. Edna and the biographer are both women of their time and the book uses this to show the changing lives of women from the 1930s to the 1990s. Chunks of history and art history are shoehorned into the narrative, which Murray largely gets away with by making it part of a ‘life and times’ biography. It makes the character of Edna totally believable and only occasionally strays towards the didactic.

We See the Stars, Kate Van Hooft

Life in a country town in the early seventies is evoked through the eyes of a young boy called Simon. He has barely spoken since something happened to his mum, several years ago, but he has always had issues that she used to help him with. This includes what he calls his angries, when he loses control. A school he is a weirdo who is bullied and he survives with the help of imaginary friends and a rich interior life. His dad and younger brother do their best to support him, but his grandma thinks he should be sent away to a special school in the city. Life looks up a bit when a girl with her own issues befriends Simon and a new teacher takes an interest in him. But it all goes to shit when the teacher goes missing and Simon is bound by a promise not to tell her secret, which could help find her. This is a deeply sad story of a community beset by ignorance and behind-closed-doors brutality. The voice of a troubled boy rings true and as flashbacks reveal a tragic past, which sheds light on the difficult present, the reader is inexorably led to an even more tragic future.

The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean, by Mira Robertson

During WWII teenage Emily is sent to country Victoria while her mother is ill. Insecure, lonely, immature Emily hates the family farm and doesn’t particularly like the family. The device of seeing events through Emily’s naïve eyes doesn’t quite work as it leads to a detachment from them and you end up not particularly caring about any of it. Even though the story takes place over only a few weeks, it comes across as a series of vignettes – Emily has a crush, Emily gets drunk, Emily gets a bra, Emily realises her cousin is a Lesbian – rather than as a full narrative. None of the characters is particularly appealing, least of all awkward adolescent Emily. She does manage to grow up a little but not much and her optimistic departure for Melbourne at the end seems overstated.

The Power Game, by Meg & Tom Kenneally

Ticket-of-leave convict Monsarrat and his intrepid housekeeper Mrs Mulrooney have been sent to solve a murder on the remote penal settlement on Maria Island, Tasmania. It seems a very long way to travel for such a purpose in the 1820s, but the accused is a political prisoner, Irish rebel aristocrat Tom Power. Mrs Mulrooney rather takes the lead in this investigation, her employer ceding to her superior skills and intelligence in a somewhat unlikely power shift. This does allow more light to be shed on the position of women in the colonies and on the fine distinctions of class that pervade all aspects of colonial life. The history is interesting but too much is shoehorned in to demonstrate the authors’ knowledge rather than to serve the plot, especially regarding the Irish troubles. We just don’t need to know that level of detail, particularly as the authors’ acknowledge in an end note that they have taken some liberties with the truth. The tale needed better editing, with some sloppiness and a few minor inconsistencies let through. Nevertheless it is a good read and a welcome addition to the Australian historical crime genre. The end once again presages the next mystery to be solved, this time back on home soil in Sydney.

Little Gods, by Jenny Ackland

Oh what a tediously long time this novel takes to achieve nothing in particular. It has pretentions to something significant by its use of elliptical prose that frustrates rather than intrigues. It is difficult to fix the time – is it set in the 50s, 60s, 70s? It’s not until a fair way in to the story that some cultural references make it clear we are in the early 80s. This is presumably deliberate but it’s not clear what this vagueness is intended to do. After a very slow start the story builds a creepy tension to what is essentially a horror story. The main character, 12-year-old Olive, is not entirely credible. She has a precociousness combined with pre-teen naivety, which is a possible hallmark of an only child, but her stubborn refusal to see the obvious doesn’t quite compute. Appalling family dysfunction, mental illness and intergenerational damage don’t make for a cheery tale and a huge leap forward at the end seems unnecessary.

The three of Us, by Kim Lock

It is made clear from early on that this book will deal with the topic of polygamy. Thomas has a terminal illness and doesn’t know how to tell his wives of 50 years. He has been referred to a psychologist for help with this and so the story unfolds. Unfortunately what could be an interesting tale is undermined by a lack of credibility in almost every element. Over exposition and clunky dialogue make it tedious. The voice of Thomas, in particular, does not ring true but the whole story reads more as propaganda for plural relationships rather than a genuine story. The few interesting aspects include the setting of Gawler - a small country town on the outskirts of Adelaide - and insights into Australia past, such as the marriage bar. But these are not examined in any detail or developed with the story as a whole. There is little drama or conflict within the central relationship or the extended family. All the angst is external.There is hardly any individual jealousy or conflict within the threesome. Children and grandchildren are totally accepting – even those who live overseas and therefore have had limited contact with the strange relationship. The only source of pain is the necessity for secrecy and the lack of public recognition available to them. The surprise twist at the end is the least credible story element of all, leaving a sweetly saccharine finish that could not come soon enough.

Circe, by Madeline Miller

In the vein of Kerry Greenwood’s women of Troy series, this novel gives a different take on the Odyssey by telling it from the point of view of the witch Circe. Daughter of the Titan Helios, Circe is an outsider in her family and among the gods generally. Scapegoated and exiled, Circe builds an idyllic but essentially lonely life on the island of Aiaia, honing her skills over the centuries. As well as the Odyssey many of the major myths are touched on, with Circe somehow having a hand in the stories of Prometheus, Scylla and Charybdis, Daedalus and Icarus, the Minotaur, Jason and Medea. Some of these tales are more effective than others, with the focus more on their effect on Circe than the details of the stories themselves. The suffering of Prometheus and his influence on Circe is profound, but the treatment of Jason and Medea seems perfunctory. There is no sugar coating of the brutality and general indifference of the Gods in their interactions with mortals. Circe confirms her outsider status by behaving differently from her fellow immortals, confirming this ultimately by her choice to become her true self.

Salt Creek, by Lucy Treloar

The grim reality of Terra Nullius and the natural consequences of colonialism and invasion are brought to life in Salt Creek. The Coorong in the 1850s is unsuitable for farming but arrogant English adventurers, with ambitions far ahead of their abilities, displace the native population to give it a go anyway, wrecking the land in the process. The families of these incompetent, hypocritical pillagers are almost as much their victims as the local aboriginal tribes, all suffering deprivation, unnecessary illness and hardship - especially the women and girls. The story is told from the point of view of teenaged Hester, memories recalled 20 years later, back ‘home’ in England. She is the middle child and eldest daughter of the settler Finch family, who tries to hold everything together while the actions of her feckless father destroy all around and the family disintegrates. It takes a while to get in to the story, the back and forth between 1850s South Australia and 1870s Chichester is a little confusing and some of the set-up is a little dull. But Treloar gradually establishes a strong sense of time and place, building an appreciation of the beauty of this unique region, even as despair and frustration grows as the deluded religiosity of the British ruling class undermines all that is good.