Tim Slee's Blog: How's the Serenity? - Posts Tagged "fiction"
Review: Tim Winton 'The Shepherd's Hut'
*** Three stars
One of my starkest memories is of standing on the shores of a completely parched Lake Eyre in the Australian outback, shrubs around me flattened by the wind and blasted by salt. The lake stretched out forever, shimmering, flat and frankly, frightening.
These were the images Tim Winton's Shepherd's Hut brought back to me with an almost physical punch. To me, the landscape in this novel is the most impactful character.
Many other reviews talk about this novel being an iconic 'coming of age' story, or focus on the lessons the protagonist 'Jaxie' learns about being a man. I felt little of that, and it was a shame that in a book featuring only two characters (if you don't count the landscape!) I found neither Jaxie nor the old hermit who lives in the Shepherd's hut to be engaging figures. As usual for Winton, a lot is left to the readers' imagination and the missing back story of how the hermit, Fintan, came to be living in a hut in the middle of nowhere is typical of that. I don't find that frustrating, because I am a die hard Winton fan and used to his ways, but others might find the characters under developed because of it.
This is the first Winton novel for which I skipped swathes of text. The second third of the book is slow, with a whole lot of nothing going on except Jaxie's internal dialogue. It reads more like the diary of a teenage boy than a novel. I also tired very quickly of Winton's use of 'idiom', writing as he imagines the uneducated boy would talk. Authentic, maybe, but also rather annoying. I favor the Elmore Leonard ten commandments of writing, one of which is 'don't try to write in dialects'. In past Winton novels he has managed to capture the language of Australia without feral grammar dominating, but in this, it is unrelenting and overdone.
"And it sort of worked, our arrangement. Before I couldna seen the sense in it."
"It was two whole days before he give me a knife he had spare."
And finally, as we get to the last third of the the novel and it appears to be going nowhere (with no resolution in sight because there is in fact no story arc, just two guys in a hut in the desert shooting goats and arguing with each other) the author throws in a sudden, violent and frankly unlikely encounter with which to wind things up.
I'm a huge Winton fan and have loved everything he has written, reading all of his books at least twice and Cloud Street at least five times. Any Winton book is worth waiting for so when I award this one an average '3 stars' it is only in the context of how great his other books have been! I just can't see myself reading this one twice, or recommending it to others.
One of my starkest memories is of standing on the shores of a completely parched Lake Eyre in the Australian outback, shrubs around me flattened by the wind and blasted by salt. The lake stretched out forever, shimmering, flat and frankly, frightening.
These were the images Tim Winton's Shepherd's Hut brought back to me with an almost physical punch. To me, the landscape in this novel is the most impactful character.
Many other reviews talk about this novel being an iconic 'coming of age' story, or focus on the lessons the protagonist 'Jaxie' learns about being a man. I felt little of that, and it was a shame that in a book featuring only two characters (if you don't count the landscape!) I found neither Jaxie nor the old hermit who lives in the Shepherd's hut to be engaging figures. As usual for Winton, a lot is left to the readers' imagination and the missing back story of how the hermit, Fintan, came to be living in a hut in the middle of nowhere is typical of that. I don't find that frustrating, because I am a die hard Winton fan and used to his ways, but others might find the characters under developed because of it.
This is the first Winton novel for which I skipped swathes of text. The second third of the book is slow, with a whole lot of nothing going on except Jaxie's internal dialogue. It reads more like the diary of a teenage boy than a novel. I also tired very quickly of Winton's use of 'idiom', writing as he imagines the uneducated boy would talk. Authentic, maybe, but also rather annoying. I favor the Elmore Leonard ten commandments of writing, one of which is 'don't try to write in dialects'. In past Winton novels he has managed to capture the language of Australia without feral grammar dominating, but in this, it is unrelenting and overdone.
"And it sort of worked, our arrangement. Before I couldna seen the sense in it."
"It was two whole days before he give me a knife he had spare."
And finally, as we get to the last third of the the novel and it appears to be going nowhere (with no resolution in sight because there is in fact no story arc, just two guys in a hut in the desert shooting goats and arguing with each other) the author throws in a sudden, violent and frankly unlikely encounter with which to wind things up.
I'm a huge Winton fan and have loved everything he has written, reading all of his books at least twice and Cloud Street at least five times. Any Winton book is worth waiting for so when I award this one an average '3 stars' it is only in the context of how great his other books have been! I just can't see myself reading this one twice, or recommending it to others.
BURN wins 2018 Banjo Prize!
Crazy but true. My manuscript BURN won the 2018 Banjo Prize for Australian Fiction, so now I'm signed with HarperCollins!
You can read more about it below but of course huge thanks to the GoodReads community for all the encouragement the last couple of years!
https://www.harpercollins.com.au/blog...
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entert...
You can read more about it below but of course huge thanks to the GoodReads community for all the encouragement the last couple of years!
https://www.harpercollins.com.au/blog...
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entert...
Themes in Taking Tom Murray Home: The Power of Community
In Denmark I live in a cul de sac where the age of the 20 or so residents ranges from nine weeks (we have two babies in the street) to ninety years (we have two nonagenarians!). When people are on holiday, we watch each other's houses, water each other's plants, empty each other's mailboxes. Twice a year, for Easter and late summer, we get together for street parties. When my wife and I had to go away recently for a few days and leave our teenage son on his own, we knew that if anything happened he could knock on any of the neighbours' doors for help and he'd get it.
If you're reading this and thinking, 'would never happen here', then try organising a street party and see what happens, then decide.
We are herd animals. We thrive in hives. We flock together in families, in football clubs, on media we call social for exactly that reason. Why?
A clear reason is the age-old adage that we stand stronger together. Like arctic penguins huddled against a killer storm, we can be picked off if we stand alone, but we can get through almost anything together.
In Taking Tom Murray Home, a family is thrown off its farm, and the community rallies around them. It doesn't always take a tragedy for this sense of community to emerge, but tragedies bring the herd together like nothing else: bushfires, floods, storms, funerals.
And the way we do it in Australia is just so very Australian. It's done quietly. Without fanfare. It's almost assumed. We pitch in. We dig deep. We turn up. We don't expect praise. We just get it done because we always have, and that's who we are. If you think I'm romanticising, and the world just isn't like that anymore, I can point you to a hundred different proofs that it is, but I really like this one:
http://rightnow.org.au/opinion-3/aust...
Another, more personal example, will always stick in my mind. As a journalist covering the Ash Wednesday bushfires I wrote a story called 'the hero of Yarrabee road'. It was about a guy who braved flame and fire to help evacuate people who had been trapped on Yarabee road in the Adelaide Hills by the speed of the blaze, and in the process completely trashed the classic Holden ute they were restoring, getting their neighbours to safety when they could have just made a run for it themselves.
But they wouldn't let me use their real names, and they never got a medal, because in typical Australian fashion they said, 'anyone would have done the same.'
Tom Murray's widow could have driven her horse and carriage and coffin to Melbourne on her own and might have had the same impact. But I couldn't for a minute imagine a scenario where she would have decided to do that, and others would not have joined in. Most of the people who join her in the novel are older (you might have noticed that), partly because they have the time, but also because they've lived through enough to know that alone with your kids and a coffin on a highway is not a place you want to be. Surrounded by friends, neighbours and fellow travellers is.
I know this is no radical new thought, but to me it's one of the best parts of human nature (or animal nature?) and something I definitely wanted to show in Taking Tom Murray Home.
If you're reading this and thinking, 'would never happen here', then try organising a street party and see what happens, then decide.
We are herd animals. We thrive in hives. We flock together in families, in football clubs, on media we call social for exactly that reason. Why?
A clear reason is the age-old adage that we stand stronger together. Like arctic penguins huddled against a killer storm, we can be picked off if we stand alone, but we can get through almost anything together.
In Taking Tom Murray Home, a family is thrown off its farm, and the community rallies around them. It doesn't always take a tragedy for this sense of community to emerge, but tragedies bring the herd together like nothing else: bushfires, floods, storms, funerals.
And the way we do it in Australia is just so very Australian. It's done quietly. Without fanfare. It's almost assumed. We pitch in. We dig deep. We turn up. We don't expect praise. We just get it done because we always have, and that's who we are. If you think I'm romanticising, and the world just isn't like that anymore, I can point you to a hundred different proofs that it is, but I really like this one:
http://rightnow.org.au/opinion-3/aust...
Another, more personal example, will always stick in my mind. As a journalist covering the Ash Wednesday bushfires I wrote a story called 'the hero of Yarrabee road'. It was about a guy who braved flame and fire to help evacuate people who had been trapped on Yarabee road in the Adelaide Hills by the speed of the blaze, and in the process completely trashed the classic Holden ute they were restoring, getting their neighbours to safety when they could have just made a run for it themselves.
But they wouldn't let me use their real names, and they never got a medal, because in typical Australian fashion they said, 'anyone would have done the same.'
Tom Murray's widow could have driven her horse and carriage and coffin to Melbourne on her own and might have had the same impact. But I couldn't for a minute imagine a scenario where she would have decided to do that, and others would not have joined in. Most of the people who join her in the novel are older (you might have noticed that), partly because they have the time, but also because they've lived through enough to know that alone with your kids and a coffin on a highway is not a place you want to be. Surrounded by friends, neighbours and fellow travellers is.
I know this is no radical new thought, but to me it's one of the best parts of human nature (or animal nature?) and something I definitely wanted to show in Taking Tom Murray Home.
1,000 km and hundreds of smiles
A big thankyou to all the lovely folks I met on my recent 1,109 km tour of Australia's SW Victoria! Looking forward to meeting you all again I hope, when 'Taking Tom Murray Home' comes out in July. Not enough space in the collage for everyone but will feature stories and videos later! Will give a small shoutout though to those who hosted me so kindly, Ironbird Bookshop (Port Fairy), Collins Booksellers (Warrnambool), Cow Lick Bookshop (Colac), Great Escape Books (Airey's Inlet), Dymocks Geelong, The Bookshop at Queenscliff, Antipodes Bookshop & Gallery (Sorrento), Farrells Bookshop (Mornington), Robinsons Bookshop HQ Carrum Downs, Thesaurus Booksellers (Brighton), Dymocks Melbourne (Melbourne), Robinsons Bookshop (Melbourne), Readings (Carlton) and not to forget Kim and Leah of Heartwood Horses and Leading Senior Constable Leo Finnegan of the Portland Victoria Police! And to the wonderful people at HarperCollins Books for organising ...
(Proceeds from Taking Tom Murray Home will go to Plan International Australia).
(Proceeds from Taking Tom Murray Home will go to Plan International Australia).
3 ways to manage the pressure of 'the dreaded second novel'!
As a first-time novelist, you are asked a lot about (and worry about) 'what is your next one about'? Even before the first one is out! Talk about pressure! So, I'm writing THREE 'next ones'. Which is typical me. The first, which I titled 'Deep River', is in the bag, first draft done.
It starts like this:
ENROLMENT
This is a tale of three Henrys. One was young, adventurous and trusting. Another was an alcoholic, opioid abusing, empty hulk saved from self-destruction against his own wishes. The third, is me.
***
I'm also working on an alternative version of that one. A totally different take on the same theme, a little more suspense, than dark humour. It's about 2/3 done. Let's call it 'Deep River 2' even thought it's almost completely different - it starts like this:
SOL VISTA
I like it quiet. I like the soft, dusty stillness of people ageing. I like walking down the frangipani bedecked pathways, past the apartment doors with just a television burbling away or someone singing nursery rhymes softly to themselves. It used to be peaceful around here, but lately there’s been way too much yelling and screaming.
***
The third novel, I just started in Feb, but it's also 2/3 done because it's turning out to be such fun to write, that it's almost writing itself. I'm calling it 'Goat Island' and it starts like this:
1994, SUMMER
Sometimes you choose a place, and sometimes a place chooses you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those hippie earth-mother Gaiea freaks. But you have to admit there’s a certain power about the land we live on. Geothermal, tectonic, gravitational. It won’t be ignored, if it decides to assert itself.
***
All three will be finished soon (by summer I hope). I wonder if any of them will make it into the big wide world?
Books + Publishing review of Tom Murray
Joanne Shiells of Australian Books + Publishing just dropped a very nice review of Taking Tom Murray Home coming out this August!
Easily readable, highly entertaining and destined for the screen...
"This debut novel and winner of HarperCollins’ Banjo Prize is based on the ingenious premise of a funeral-protest that raises awareness of the pressures facing dairy farmers from banks, supermarkets and the cult of cheap milk. After Tom Murray accidentally kills himself burning his farmhouse down to prevent the bank from getting it, his wife, Dawn, decides to take his body via horse and cart on a five-day journey to Melbourne. Along the way, the entourage attracts wanted and unwanted attention, a colourful medley of characters and a sizeable hashtag following. Tom’s twin children, Jack and Jenny, are united by the belief their dad is still alive and their analgesia, an inability to feel pain. Narrative tension increases as the journey progresses, with the police trying to stop it, the media fuelling it and a mystery following it. Tim Slee celebrates Australia’s rebel spirit with references to Henry Lawson and Ned Kelly, and unearths the stoicism, perseverance and humour of our rural character. Easily readable, highly entertaining and destined for the screen, this book should have broad appeal. It typifies a true Australian yarn but points to more serious problems in society, especially the issues facing those on the land.
4 STARS
(Joanne Shiells is a former book buyer and a former editor of Books+Publishing)
Preorders:
https://www.booktopia.com.au/taking-t...
https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Tom-Mur...
http://www.collinsbooks.com.au/book/T...
https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/takin...
Easily readable, highly entertaining and destined for the screen...
"This debut novel and winner of HarperCollins’ Banjo Prize is based on the ingenious premise of a funeral-protest that raises awareness of the pressures facing dairy farmers from banks, supermarkets and the cult of cheap milk. After Tom Murray accidentally kills himself burning his farmhouse down to prevent the bank from getting it, his wife, Dawn, decides to take his body via horse and cart on a five-day journey to Melbourne. Along the way, the entourage attracts wanted and unwanted attention, a colourful medley of characters and a sizeable hashtag following. Tom’s twin children, Jack and Jenny, are united by the belief their dad is still alive and their analgesia, an inability to feel pain. Narrative tension increases as the journey progresses, with the police trying to stop it, the media fuelling it and a mystery following it. Tim Slee celebrates Australia’s rebel spirit with references to Henry Lawson and Ned Kelly, and unearths the stoicism, perseverance and humour of our rural character. Easily readable, highly entertaining and destined for the screen, this book should have broad appeal. It typifies a true Australian yarn but points to more serious problems in society, especially the issues facing those on the land.
4 STARS
(Joanne Shiells is a former book buyer and a former editor of Books+Publishing)
Preorders:
https://www.booktopia.com.au/taking-t...
https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Tom-Mur...
http://www.collinsbooks.com.au/book/T...
https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/takin...
eBook giveaway!
Running an e-book giveaway in the Aussie Readers' discussion group for 'Taking Tom Murray Home'
5 copies to give away, to enter, just pop in to the group and say who is your favorite Aussie poet, and why!
(Answers such as Nick Cave or Kylie Minogue are totally acceptable...)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
ENDS SEPT 30
5 copies to give away, to enter, just pop in to the group and say who is your favorite Aussie poet, and why!
(Answers such as Nick Cave or Kylie Minogue are totally acceptable...)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
ENDS SEPT 30
How's the Serenity?
A blog about the fun of balancing life, work, family, friends, writing and karma... mostly writing and karma.
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