“I laugh out loud at how wonderful life is that it takes a hell of a knock like that and it’s just fine, and I find the steadiness in myself...”

Starlings, Lindisfarne. August 2021.

All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld

As an oddly structured novel, the book features alternating chapters from the perspective of our narrator's present (told in the past tense) and her past (told in the present tense). Those chapters set in the present progress in an even and linear fashion. Those chapters set in the past hop and leap backwards in a disconnected and disjointed way. While this is an innovative way to capture our protagonist's haphazard and traumatic past, the fragmented nature of the telling is confusing at times.

There is some evocative writing here, with those sections set on the remote sheep station and in the present particularly resonant. Other sections failed to convince, with the strange relationship with the withered Otto and the period of sex work in a port town in the Pilbara striking a bit of a dull note to my ear.

We know very little about our central character, as Wyld lets the past emerge in fragments and half-light. The one constant is a woman carrying a load, traumatised by something (or someone) and choosing self-isolation as her defence. I appreciated how the relationship emerges with the similarly damaged Lloyd, which emerges in the present in a natural and hopeful fashion. This gives the entire piece some possibility of light and redemption amidst the dark and desolate surroundings.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2

Comments

If you want to be loved, be lovable.

Henry admires the view.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

Here I have tried my hand at the homemade sepia-toned photo. I wasn’t happy with the way that the sun had washed out some of the colours in the original, so had a bit of a fiddle because I like the look on Henry’s face, and didn’t want to pass on posting it. I have a tip for those of you burdened with the great, unceasing weight of parenthood. I have a new recipe, in the vein of the quick microwaved chocolate cake . Get this, microwaved potato chips . I gave them a run on Sunday, Henry liked the so much I did it again last night. Tonight, I shall be experimenting with sweet potato. I think that the ground is open for me to exploit opportunities in the swede, turnip, carrot and maybe even explore in the area of pumpkins. Radical, I know. I’m a boundary-pusher by nature. It's pretty simple, take the potato. Slice it thinly (it doesn't have to be too thin, but thin enough). Lay the slices on the microwave plate, whack a bit of salt over the top and nuke the buggers for five minut

This will hurt me...

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