Category / Novels

by Melissa Watts

Finding Eliza

It’s been a while since I blogged so I thought it would be fitting to begin back with a post on Finding Eliza by Heather Whitford Roche.

Finding Eliza is set in 1921 and tells the story of a young man, Knill, and his journey to find his true identity. It’s a story of belonging and family, of responsibility and social mores. It is also strongly about connection to place. In fact the novel is vivid in its sense of place. I will avoid spoilers but as Knill journeys mentally and emotionally he also journeys physically. In each new environment Heather crafts locations that are evocative and clear, that nurture a contemporary reader through the locations of the past. Sometimes when reading historical fiction I find a wedge between myself and the ‘place’ of the novel. Sometimes I feel like an author has dedicated so much effort to ensure that readers connect with their characters that I feel like I am walking through a dimly lit room. While I’m holding the hand of a character I want to see the space clearly, to see the moment in time and what life was like then, but it is missed. This is not the case in Finding Eliza. Each location that Knill finds himself in is evocative making the book a joy to read.

Knill is a delightful protagonist. I enjoyed working through the doubts, frustrations and excitements with him, especially through moments where he challenges himself. The cast of friends around him are equally as infectious and well written.

I must confess to being biased in my reading. Years ago (pre-kids when I had a thing called ‘spare-time’) I used to workshop with Heather. I loved reading the early passages of Knill’s adventures each month, just as I enjoyed receiving Heather’s feedback which was always knowledgeable. So to finally hold in my hand the outcome of all of those years of workshopping was inspiring. All the writers who sat around that table were fantastic writers and I hope their work is published soon as well. Being part of a writing community has some wonderful benefits and seeing your friends publish something that they have worked on for so long is a great feeling. Congratulations to Heather on such a brilliant book.

Heather Whitford Roche, Finding Eliza. 2018, Allandow Press.

by Melissa Watts

Reading wrap up

I can’t believe that it has been so long since my last blog post.

Over the last few years I’ve been caught up in all that a PhD demands, started a small business with my partner and welcomed a baby daughter into the world. I took a break in 2017 to focus on my family (newborn, 3 yo and 5 yo) and now I’m back at the writing desk focused on my PhD novel (well, part-time anyway).

As a result I’m finding some brilliant novels, articles, podcasts and general miscellany that I’d love to start sharing.

Novels:

I’ve recently read a few novels which would likely be branded romance, although I read them for their historical elements mainly their settings in WWII. The first was Elise McCune’s Castle of Dreams (Allen & Unwin, 2016). I met Elise at last years Historical Novel Association of Australia Conference and she was so open with her advice and encouragement on writing in a WWII setting. Her novel is a tale of family secrets but if there was one thing I took away from the novel it was the enduring sense of place that she crafted. Elise’s novel was partly set in a castle – Paronella Park, 120 kms south of Cairns. Throughout the novel is a sense of magic, other-worldliness, that surrounds the castle and its eventual decay. The women I am researching worked in a mansion so I enjoyed how Elise crafted the castle almost as a character.

The second is Anita Heiss’ Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms (Simon & Schuster 2017). Again this novel is more than a romance, it is a work of historical fiction that centres on the Cowra POW breakout, the Erambie Station and merges an unlikely relationship between the families on an Aboriginal Mission and an escaped Japanese POW. Again I read this book selfishly – I’m currently reaching WWII Italian interns and Indigenous members of the AWAS (Australian Women’s Army Service) so it interested me on two levels. What I took from this book was the way that Heiss was able to include well researched historical fact into the novel without the reader feeling lectured. I came away feeling like I too had been welcomed into the family by Banjo, his wife and daughter, and like Hiroshi I was learning what it was like to live at Erambie in 1944.

Articles:

A few years ago I gave a talk at the Australian Historical Association Conference titled ‘Fast Women or an Essential Service?’ which looked at the representation of women in the services during WWII. In January Danielle Broadhurst published an article on Vida – The Australian Women’s History Network blog, titled ‘Khaki-mad’: The gendered approach to venereal disease in World War Two – You don’t need to be into venereal diseases to enjoy reading it, it’s a really well researched insight into gendered approaches to health and the war effort.

Little Gems:

I’ve listed below a few things I’ve come across in my procrastination research that made me smile/grit teeth or anything in between.

 

Podcasts:

I know I’m slow to the game but life with a newborn has been so much nicer with podcasts. One of my favourites that I’ve been listening to is The Slow Home podcast. I’m attempting to transition into slow living and minimalism and this podcast has a great mix of academic theory with practical examples for living a slow life. Plus I enjoy the mix of Australian and International guests. It’s worth a listen for anyone trying to slow down and focus on what is important in life.

 

by Melissa Watts

Deborah Burrows – A Time of Secrets

On reading selfishly.
 Secrets
I’ve just finished reading Deborah Burrows’ A Time of Secrets, a novel that I picked up because…well…the cover caught my eye. So yes, I did judge a book by it’s cover, but for very good reason. The woman on the cover is wearing a WWII era AWAS (Australian Women’s Army Service) uniform and I am currently working on a PhD which will be a novel and exegesis focusing on some AWAS members. So of course I plucked the book off the shelf and added it to my ever growing ‘to read’ pile. At this stage of my PhD the majority of my reading has been non-fiction so it was wonderful to come across a novel set in the same era with similar themes.
A Time of Secrets is set in 1943 in Melbourne, with protagonist Stella Aldridge who is an AWAS sergeant working in the Australian Intelligence Bureau. Stella has two important mysteries to solve –  In chapter one she overhears some soldiers discussing a plot for a revenge killing which she determines to investigate, and then her work leads her to another mystery – who is leaking information from the Intelligence Bureau to the enemy? Weaved around these two key plots is romance, murder and the ongoing sense of good-guy/bad-guy with the reader constantly switching loyalties between Stella’s friends and love interests as more secrets are exposed.
This novel was a chance for me to read selfishly. While I read historical fiction quite widely and always take note of how research is woven into the text, I haven’t read any books that draws from the same (or similar) pool of research documents. The women I will be focusing on worked in the Survey Corps in Bendigo, so while there is a big difference in our plots and characterisations it was great to absorb the general mise en scene of WWII Melbourne – the rations, the music and of course, the Americans.
It also got me thinking about the publishing trends for a novel of this type. I’ve been lamenting the lack of representation of women’s war experience in Australia, in both popular culture and formal histories (by ‘lack’ I don’t mean that there is no representation, I just mean that it is minimal – but that’s a post for another time). So it was great to see that there was some shelf space for a novel like this and gave me some hope that mine might also find some space there one day.
Deborah Burrows, A Time of Secrets, Pan Macmillan Australia. 2015.
by Melissa Watts

The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White  

Thebeautifulroomisempty

 

On Genre expectations.

The Beautiful Room is Empty has sat on my bookshelf for years. I finally decided to read it when I was researching the genre of Künstlerroman. Künstlerroman means ‘artist’s novel’ in German and is closely related to the genre of bildungsroman, where a novel focuses on the growth of a protagonist usually through youth. In the case of künstlerroman the novel focuses on the development of the protagonist into an artist.

The Beautiful Room is Empty is a great novel that explores psychoanalysis and sexual repression within 1950s and 60s America. Themes of social class and gay experience predominate and the fact that the characters are artists seems to be secondary to that. I was hoping to learn about the development of the character as an artist, but the character arc was more about the protagonist’s changes in emotional and sexual maturity. I’m not entirely sure that it does meet the genre of kunstlerroman, given that most of the artistic successes outlined in the text are those of the unnamed protagonists friends, rather than the protagonist himself. I think the novel would be much better categorised as a bildungsroman.

So while it didn’t answer my question about the style of Künstlerroman it did teach me about fine writing. White has woven some really delicate expressions into many of the pages. He creates an image through personification and turning descriptive assumptions on their head. There is a  strong sense of place and atmosphere with descriptions like, ‘a senile radio would be muttering to itself,’ (p3) and ‘I remember running with him down the street one grey winter afternoon when the sun, discouraged by a cold reception, had withdrawn.’ (p28) One of my favourites is ‘In Evanston I stood in the old bay window and looked out at Lake Michigan beating itself up.’ (p29) And ‘ On the floor a bum, reeking of sweet red wine, is sleeping it off, snoring loudly, a sound that draws a red line under the conspicuous silence.’ (p143)

There is also a wonderful sense of how the narrator sees the world:

 ‘The streets had been cleared, traffic lights lidded in snow burned like mad eyes, Christmas shoppers submitted to their forced labour, there were other cars cruising around as old and as dirty as ours, everyone seemed busy and indifferent – the rich anonymity of the city.’(12)

Then summer:

 ‘On this hot July night the streets were thronged with people. Here a crowd circled a sidewalk artist sketching a solemn young man with waved hair and spotty skin. The sitter was posing as though his profile were about to go on the coin of the realm. He was the only one who could not see how the sketch was coming along, this disappointment being patiently prepared for him.’ (133)

I love this last image of disappointment being patiently prepared, a larger metaphor life in some ways with tragic/comedic elements.

Edumund White The Beautiful Room is Empty, Picador 1988.

 

 

 

 

 

by Melissa Watts

Manuscript Assessment

Last month I hit two scary milestones – my baby turned 1 and started childcare, and my novel went out on its own for a manuscript assessment. The first day of childcare happened to coincide with me dropping my manuscript off so of course I began drawing obvious parallels, things like recognising that my novel has been with me for the last seven years, in my thoughts daily as I work on it, helping it grow so it can go off one day on its own, just like a child. It’s kept me awake at night, and some days I’ve felt like all I’ve done is wipe excrement off it.

Of course you can’t really compare a manuscript to a child but I was equally as nervous dropping off my baby to his carer’s as I was dropping my novel off to the assessors. But I think manuscript assessment is an important step for a few reasons:

  • Writing is an insular activity. It’s important to share your work eventually, when the time’s right to make sure you are not heading down the wrong path with your editing and plot/character development.
  • It’s important to select an assessor that is right for your work. I’ve selected Jill Blee from Eureka House, as she has a background in Historical Fiction, including the era and location that my novel is set in.
  • I’ve done workshops will Jill before so I know that she will be blunt but honest. I want to know that I’m getting useful feedback, so that I can keep working on the novel to get it to its best stage.
  • I provided Jill with a range of questions that I’ve been wondering about for a few years. Is this character relevant? Is this character clear? Does anyone even care about the plot other than me? I’ve discussed some of the questions with my writing group but none of the other writers have read my novel. It’s important to get feedback on those questions by someone who has dedicated time to consider your work.

Will I take on all of the feedback that Jill provides? Well…I guess only time will tell. Will I be drinking champagne or gin? Probably both.

Please let me know about your experiences of manuscript assessment and how it has worked well (or not) for you.

by Melissa Watts

Place as Character – Toni Jordan Nine Days

art-353-Nine-Days-300x0-184x280 I’ve seen Toni Jordan speak at quite a few events, and I was fortunate enough to hear her again towards the end of last year at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute. It was just after the launch of her latest novel, Nine Days.

I knew about the general premise of the book before I bought it – that Jordan was inspired by a photograph from the Argus records. (The image is on the cover of the book) But what I didn’t know was that the nine days of the title, refers to the plot structure. The novel tells of nine days, spread across seventy years, which transform the lives of each member of the Westaway family.  Each chapter is narrated by a different member of the family as they face their transformative day. However the plot is not structured chronologically. This device is a wonderful tool for driving the plot. Readers are left to fill in some blanks when the novel jumps from 1939 to the weeks immediately after the September 11 collapse of the world trade centre in 2001. We wonder who the new narrator is and how is she related to Kip, the character we’ve just grown to love in chapter one. This continues through the book, and it’s Jordan’s skill as a storyteller that ensures that readers don’t feel dislocated, instead urging them on with a new character who is just as fascinating as the one before. Continue reading →

by Melissa Watts

A quick fling or a long-term relationship?

Over the past few months I’ve had some success with some short stories and poetry I’ve written. It’s been a really invigorating time for my writing and I can’t help but making the parallel between a quick fling and a long-term relationship.

For about 4 years I’ve been working on the same novel, slogging away, comfortable in its familiarity. It’s become cozy, dependable and we’ve both spread out around out middles like a couple who have been together for a while. Don’t get me wrong I love it, but these last few months feel like it’s been away on a business trip and I’ve just discovered a nightclub of swingers at the end of the street, (figuratively speaking of course).

Along came the novels and poetry and bam, I’ve remembered what it’s like to be in throws of a passionate stanza, or a quickie story, joyously experimental. It’s been exciting and successful and has got me wondering if I’m wasting my time with my long-term love?

I’m feeling a bit like the pilot with two families – can I balance both? Come home to roost with the novel but have the occasional weekend away with saucy story or a pumped-up poem? Should I give the novel an ultimatum perhaps? I do have a 6 month plan for the novel, I might just try my hardest with it and make up my mind then…

by Melissa Watts

The Mint Lawn – Gillian Mears

I have a confession to make.

It has taken me 5 months to read Gillian Mears’ The Mint Lawn.

In that time Mears has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin and won the Prime Ministers Literary Award for Foal’s Bread.

And I was still plugging away with The Mint Lawn.

There are several plausible reasons for this. I have a 7 month old baby. I’m not getting a full night sleep. I’ve been busy with Ballarat Writers events….etc. etc.

But the honest reason is because of the book itself. It’s strong. It’s thought provoking. It requires energy and attention. It requires a slow read.

The Mint Lawn follows the life of Clementine Eastern nee Young. It’s not structured chronologically, so the novel begins with Clementine exposing her own affair to her husband and wondering if this is how it happened with her mother and father. From the opening page we understand that this will be a novel where familial bonds, and neuroses are examined. The examination is clinical, truthful as it looks at the legacy left by a dead mother to her three daughters, in relation to marriage, intimacy and sexuality.

The first 75 pages are told in the first person by a 25 year old Clementine, which firmly roots the reader with her, we are excited by the passion of her affair with the creative Thomas, we see the legacy of her childhood with her relationship with her adult sister and above all we see her characterisation of her husband. The first few paragraphs display Hugh crying over the exposed affair, “his crying is a high, unlikely whine…he is crying with his mouth stretched so wide I can see, against my will, years of coffee stains etched on the underside of his front teeth.” A paragraph on he licks her face while kissing her and Clementine informs us that, “later, the smell of Hugh’s dried spit is awful and ordinary Sunlight soap won’t do the job. I have to wash it away with the knob of Coal Tar that sits by the washing machine for extra persistent stains.” Hugh’s characterisation is complete by the bottom of page 2, and we will spend the rest of the 405 pages mentally urging Clementine to pack her bags and go.

Not all the novel is narrated in the first person present tense. We have sections of childhood told in third person, which allows us to examine the domestic scene closer, with our own adult perspective watching the three Young daughters interact with their mother, who we know will die, and we know already some of the character traits that her daughters will develop. This changing perspective and timeframe creates an ability for the reader to analyse the family in a way that wouldn’t be possible if the novel retained one perspective, or was chronological. And this is what requires the energy. The reader is placed almost as another daughter, watching the machinations of domesticity, aware of which traits will be picked up and continued through the daughters, and which will cause problems.

The Mint Lawn was Mears’ first novel and it won the 1990 Vogel award.  To consider the complexities of the book with its length (405 pages) it’s hard to believe that this was a first novel. I can see similarities with Christina Stead’s, The Man Who Loves Children, with the suffocating sense of the household replaced by the small town (a character itself) in The Mint Lawn.

 I felt that the novel is crafted brilliantly and reads like it has been created by someone who has published several novels before. With this in mind I did some research and discovered that sections of the book are biographical. In an interview in 2011 with Linda Morris for the Sydney Morning Herald, Morris notes that:

Mears, however, well understands the paradox of country life: the barefoot freedom and the claustrophobia of living in a conservative country town. At 18 she caused a scandal, falling in love with her history teacher. When they divorced, she rebelled in the sexual abandonment of carefree Paris.

Mears poured so much of her pre-divorce anger into The Mint Lawn that for a coming 20th-anniversary release, she edited out narrator Clementine’s more ”unsavoury observations”. Her past lovers, male and female, sexual trysts and life’s ”bad weather” are all matters about which she has been searingly honest.

Long ago, however, she reconciled with her former husband and family, with whom she fell out over looted memories. As she grows older, Mears has come to realise how deeply she can cherish ”certain aspects of even a marriage gone rotten”.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/interview-gillian-mears-20111117-1njp5.html#ixzz2AMK7bQnY

The novel begins to make more sense to me when I realise that it has autobiographical elements to it – I’m glad I read it before I knew that, however it’s left me wondering if that’s where its power lies. Is it possible to create a novel that intense without an autobiographical element?

If you are interested in reading more on this there is a great article available online which was originally published by The Australian by Murray Waldren: http://users.tpg.com.au/waldrenm/mears.html

Gillian Mears, The Mint Lawn, Allen and Unwin, first published 1991.

This review forms part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge.

by Melissa Watts

The Pines Hold Their Secrets

Jill Blee’s historical fiction always grabs a reader early because of its setting, and The Pines Hold Their Secrets is no exception.

Set on Norfolk Island when it was a Penal Colony the novel examines the key elements of politics, religion and social conventions of the time. This is something of a ‘rites of passage’ book, following the protagonist Elise Cartwright on her journey from Hobart to Norfolk Island to join her father who is deployed there as a Super Intendant of Agriculture. His role is a demotion from the profile they had in Hobart, and the motivation for this leaves an outstanding question throughout the novel. Continue reading →