Mysteries abound in a bleak country town.
'There are things out there worse than sharks'. Sparse and bleak at times, this is evocatively written and quite austere and dramatic .This is Sam Carmody’s debut novel and extremely impressive. Powerfully written, fresh and sharp and at times it feels ominous yet desolate and one of the two main central mysteries is never really resolved.
Most of the story is about Paul searching for his brother Elliot and how he moves to the WA country town of Stark and works as a crayfisher like his brother. For Paul, the novel's young protagonist, Stark is where his older brother, Elliot, was last seen before he went missing. Now two months after they have received the news, Paul is disturbed by his parents' apparent lethargy (his father discusses the loss: 'the tone that someone used when musing on some minor complication, as if he were talking about the printer in his study running out of ink') and dissatisfied with the police's quite laid-back attitude so Paul moves to Stark to find out what actually occurred.
Was Elliot (and/or Elliot’s girlfriend Tess) involved with drug running? The story is told through Paul’s eyes and is interwoven with the story of Troy (known as The Swiss) and ‘The President’ head of a bikie gang/drug cartel. The twp are traversing the outback towards WA and The Swiss is obtaining an education in violence on the way.
Stark, a small fishing town on the West Australian coast, has become a magnet for a particular sort of person. Stark is described as a ‘destination for sad cases‘ by one character and another calls it a place mistaken for 'the edge of the world. Everyone has got some issues here. Not that it's a retreat or anything. There's no healing. It's more a containment kind of thing.'
Paul ends up working on the same crayfishing boat as Elliot, run by their troubled cousin Jake, he rents a room from a fellow deckhand, Michael, and unearths what snippets he can from eavesdropping on the circumspect fishermen at the tavern. Paul soon learns how many chances there are to get lost in those many thousands of kilometres of lonely coastline. His tactics cause the locals great unease, especially at first.
What becomes obvious to Paul as he settles into the town is the variety of ways in which his brother could have been hurt. Stark thrums with the undercurrent of violence. Boats are pounded by big seas to remind people of the delicacy of the men aboard them, sharks are an ominous and resented presence looming around the town and on land there's the barely hidden methamphetamine trade that runs through the community, destroying its core. Stark’s precarious social and economic balance is ready to be shattered. Nothing, as Elliot had previously warned Paul, is quite what it seems.
Carmody renders the underlying malice in Stark excellently and the cast of rather misfit residents – bar tender Jule , larrikin but hardworking Jungle, emaciated meth addict Roo Do and, newly arrived cop Freda are all viewed and created vividly. There is also Michael, a philosophizing German backpacking tourist who is an escapee from an Oxford education. His awkward, intense relationship with Polish backpacker, Kasia, temporary barmaid at the local, reveals quite a lot about Paul's lack of experience in matters of the heart, and the lost way in which he wanders about the world without his brother to guide him. Through the book’s journey we see how Paul is forced to define himself and discover find out what kind of man he is – not an easy journey for him to make. There are also Paul’s parents and his rather brusque and brisk Aunt Ruth.
Carmody writes in a bleak, gritty rather fierce style at times and has a great ear for dialogue. Paul is a fully developed and original character. Carmody's wonderful descriptions of the atmosphere on the boats at sea reveals the length of time he spent on crayfishing boats researching for his book. When on land, the sections describing the fishermen's drinking sessions at the local tavern are equally subtly depicted. Carmody’s writing is innately evocative in its setting of place, making us vividly feel Paul’s seasickness and the roll and crash of the crayfish deck, the delights of snorkeling or the grisly but fascinating sight of white sharks feasting on the decaying carcass of a bloated humpback whale all drawing on Carmody’s experience and love of the sea as a keen swimmer and surfer.
A striking Australian narrative set in a place surrounded by a harsh and unforgiving sea, where disturbing and mysterious influences uncover hidden secrets in the lives of the residents of the rather uncongenial town.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The Windy Season by Sam Carmody
Category: Literary fiction
ISBN: 9781760111564
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Imprint: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: August 2016
Page Extent: 344
Format: Paperback - C format
Subject: Literary fiction
RRP AUD $29.99
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