Author: Tim Winton
Publisher: Penguin Hamish Hamilton
Reviewed by Stephen Keim
When my nephew, Raphael, gave me the latest Tim Winton, it did not go to the bottom of a pile of other books waiting in a queue. My reading queue is less real (and less effective for the books on the bottom) than the immigration queue in Quetta on which Hazara people are said by Australian politicians to wait in between being gunned down by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi members wielding machine guns.
My birthday was in October and early November promised a plane trip to Perth and back. What better way to ensure that the writer’s atmospherics were not disturbed by ceaseless interruptions associated with the need to live in a social environment and earn a living? And what better way to prepare myself for being in the west since Winton’s novels are mostly set in the state where he grew up and continues to live.1
One night, before I left, I read the first twenty pages. And what a first twenty pages it is. Setting, mystery, the knowledge of previous personal disaster, current down-at-heelness, in terms of health, well-being and position in the world, the town of Fremantle loved despite itself if only because it isn’t its pastel toy town sibling upriver: it’s all there in a rush of thoughts, images, memories and action.
Tom Keely is about fifty. He is divorced and childless. He lives in El Mirador, a ten storey, low rent residential building, and avoids contact with people and news. He is racked by headaches and his lifestyle and just getting through each day have the air of a lottery. (The metaphor of falling pervades the novel.) He was an inspired and impressive organiser and spokesperson for the WA conservation movement. His lawyer wife had an affair and an abortion. The abortion, more than the infidelity, nearly killed Keely and his inability to adjust killed the marriage. Not long afterwards, sick of defeats at the hands of, and pyrrhic victories against, corrupt politicians and the rampant greed that hallmarked the state, Tom’s iron will gave way and he said things about a particular development deal which he knew were true but could not prove in a court of law.
Howled down by the establishment and not able to be abandoned quickly enough by the conservation movement, Tom is in the process of consummating the job of having lost everything.
Then, despite Tom’s best efforts, Gemma, a girl from his childhood street, and her six year old grandson, Kai, come into his life.
Tom loses his best defences against the world. And, from this encounter, his life gains meaning, direction, chaos and a menacing threat which is directed against Gemma, Kai and Tom, himself.
Gemma, Tom and Tom’s mother, Doris, assist (and frustrate) one another as they each try to cope with the threat that has emerged. Relationships are tested. The distant past plays a role along with a fast moving present. Internal battles influence the overarching battle against an external danger.
Minor characters play important roles. Bub, the kindly but struggling café owner, is Tom’s unlikely mental saviour. Tom’s deceased father, Nev, a man with a heart big enough to take on men beating up their wives when others held back, is, to Tom, as much an intimidating shadow as an inspiration. And Wally Butcher, Nev’s one-time business partner and all-time mate, still working and still eschewing undies under his shorts, when Tom runs him to him down at the marina, gives Tom a sense of persistence that may just get him through.
The result of the contending forces is uncertain until the final few pages. The reader’s sense of foreboding infuses her identification with the characters and her unbridled joy at Winton’s powerful writing. References to works of literature and art are used to add colour and tone to the action and imagery but the author wastes no time and, unless alert and right on her game, the reader may miss the references completely. I was happy to recognise Famous Blue Raincoat at page 18; Needle and the Damage Done at page 19 and ecstatic at picking out Hamlet’s soliloquy at page 369.
Winton’s writing is brilliant throughout. The action moves quickly. The characters define themselves through activity, conversation and thought. Set during the global financial crisis of 2008, Eyrie reproduces the styles and fads of our time. None appears with more colour and conviction than Fremantle’s version of the yummy mummies, the Uber-matrons. Tom hates them and lusts after them. They hardly notice him. They take over and dominate the cafes where he might find respite. They are loathsome and luscious, captured in Tom’s thought bubble: “And Jesus, even Leni Riefenstahl had spared us lycra”.
The relationship that matters most in the end is that between Tom and Kai. They share the love of letters, words and birds. They avoid social contact with others. They are drawn to each other. The question that torments the reader until the very end of the novel is whether they can save one another.
Stephen Keim SC
Clayfield
- As it turned out, I had nearly finished the book on the trip to Perth and finished it with a leisurely read on the way back to Vegas.
