Review - The Sky So Heavy

The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn. UQP. 2013

‘You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.’

This is the story of seventeen-year-old Fin and his twelve-year-old brother Max, a nuclear ‘accident’ and the events that follow. Written by an Australian author, set in an Australian landscape – The Blue Mountains – this is a dystopian survival story that piqued my interest from the start.

Zorn is quick to establish her characters ‘normal’ world – school, friends, crushes, and home life – before dropping them into a survival situation. Nuclear winter. These boys must quickly learn to fend for themselves without the aid of adults. Their parents are absent and it is soon apparent that the adults remaining cannot be relied on to behave in the usual way. Even the police can’t be trusted.

Tragedy and disaster have a way of bringing out the best and the worst in people. There are two ways people commonly react, they can become selfish, fearing only for themselves and their own situation, or they can become selfless, banding together to help those in need.

‘The true measure of a man is how he behaves when no one is watching.’

Take Starvos, the local shop owner, for instance. At first he is only concerned with how much money he can make. He makes a show of caring about everyone in the community by limiting the number of items people can buy at any time, yet he immediately doubles his prices. Later, with no idea how long the current situation will continue and concerned only for himself, he closes his shop, hides the food out of sight and is prepared to kill to protect it.

The tension builds steadily as the food runs out and people become desperate, but after reading more than 100 pages I began to wish something new would happen. There wasn’t enough action and the same goals and obstacles were repeating themselves. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the story shifted. Along with Lucy, Fin’s crush, and a boy from their school, Fin and Max finally leave the mountains and head for Sydney in search of their mother, who incidentally works for the government.

Survival of the fittest.

Dog eat dog.

Every man for himself.

Us and them.

These are the clichés and themes that filled my mind while reading The Sky So Heavy. The idea that some people are more deserving of life than others, more worthy of being saved and protected, is the refugee situation at its core. I’d be blind not to see the parallels between this fictional story and the plight of those seeking Asylum on our own shores. Zorn shines a light on Australia’s Asylum Seeker situation and the way fear and greed and misinformation can be used to support the ‘us and them’ mentality. Inhumanity.

This is our Country.

These are our resources.

You don’t deserve them.

You are not one of us.

Segregation is not a new concept in society, but the divide between the haves and the have-nots has never been more obvious. The outsider, the old, the sick, the young, the disabled, the injured – who is useful, and therefore worth saving, worth spending money (resources) on, and who is not, is reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

Zorn undertakes an unflinching dissection of human behavior under extreme conditions. People either keep their humanity in the face of incredible challenges, or they lose it, and in doing so lose themselves. It’s these near-future potentially possible scenarios that frighten us most I believe, simply because they are believable. The likelihood of them happening within our lifetimes is real. And that is terrifying.

In a world, fictional or otherwise, where money no longer has power, it is those who control the giving or withholding of our basic human needs, such as food, water, shelter and safety, who hold the balance of power. How willingly they reject those in need reveals all.

It’s a harsh world, cruel at times.

It’s been said that ‘truth is stranger than fiction’, but it’s also been said that ‘fiction shines a light on the truth’. Zorn has positioned her spotlight well.

Review - The Best Australian Stories 2014

2014 was a great year for stories.

The Best Australian Stories 2014, edited by Amanda Lohrey, is my favourite in this series to date. I look forward to the release of these anthologies each year. They are one of my annual must-reads; the other being the poetry anthology by the same publishers, Black Inc. 

I don’t remember ever reading an anthology that gripped me as tightly as this one did. I loved every story. Every story. There are twenty-three of them in this marvellous book, written by a variety of talented Australian writers, or should I call them storytellers? There are no weak stories in this collection. Each is strong enough to hold its own beside the others. Of the twenty-three stories, thirteen of them had been previously published in some of Australia’s best literary journals, including Meanjin, Overland, Island and The Sleepers Almanac.

These stories are vividly imagined, with an emotional depth that is sometimes lacking in the form. The characters are complex, both harsh and vulnerable, confident and confused. There is a sense of loss and sadness throughout many of the stories, but overall you don’t mourn these characters. They are living life, every gritty, messy, real moment of it.

My favourites were too many to list in detail here. As I said, I loved every story, but there were a few in particular I’d like to mention. Blood and Bone by Lisa Jacobson, a simple story of a son called back from the city to the family farm to carry out a task his father is unable to perform. A story I would suggest you do not read on the train or in the lunchroom at work. The Panther by David Brooks, a fantastical tale that mirrors an urban myth many country Victorians have heard, but also a tale about faith and trust. Something Special, Something Rare by Rebekah Clarkson, where a boy constantly in trouble becomes the catalyst for the reimagining of a family.

I love anthologies. It’s a chance for a reader to sample an array of writers they may never have come across individually. Being able to dip in and out at random is the fun part. I’ll often begin with the shortest tales, checking the page numbers to determine which story to read next. In this way I move through the collection both forward and backwards. Having been on an editorial team for an anthology, I understand that Lohrey would have careful chosen the order of stories so apologies to her, but I think half the fun of reading collections like these is the freedom you feel in making these decisions for yourself. Lohrey did such a wonderful job of chosing what to include that it mattered not, at least to me, in what order the stories were consumed. Each course was a tasty delight to the senses. 

If you are looking for your next read, you can’t go wrong here.

Review - Blogging for Writers

Is ironic the correct term for me writing a review on my blog about a book called 'Blogging for Writers'? I don't know. It kind of seems that way. Especially when I am returning to blogging after a long hiatus. Hmmm... Maybe it's just a coincidence.

Blogging for Writers by Robin Houghton is exactly as the title would have you believe, a book on blogging, aimed at writers. The subtitle catagorises it even further - how authors & writers build successful blogs. However, I would argue that this book provides useful information within its pages for a far broader readership. It is filled with basic 'how-to' information for creating your first blog on two of the most well known blogging platforms, Blogger and WordPress. 

The scope of instruction provided ranges from a simple thing like naming your blog, to promoting it via other forms of social media, to monetising it and even selling it. I can't think of any reason a writer would sell their personal blog, after all, it is part of their online identity, their brand. This further supports my earlier idea that this book is useful for anyone wanting to start a blog, any kind of blog.

The chapters are sequential. (No, I don't mean by numbers.) Each builds on the last. There is no jumping forward into information that you haven't understood to that point. Everything makes sense. The information is set out in a visually pleasing way, and there are real blogs given as examples for the reader to check out. 

Screen shots of the blog platforms are included, with detailed information about the various tools used in creating, customising and posting to your blog. Houghton has given the reader over 170 pages of information and inspiration, including a glossary and resorces section. Even a novice could create a dynamic blog by using the information packed into these pages. 

You will learn the difference between a hosted and self-hosted blog. You will be shown how to use and modify a template, how to add images and video, plugins and widgets. Then there are the things that help people find your blog, like catagories, tags, metadata and search engines.

If some of those terms didn't make sense, and/or you really want to create your own blog, then this is the book for you. Check it out!

Review - The Swarm

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I am a fan of the short story. I read them. I write them. I have no doubt they are here to stay and will continue to be published. I don’t buy into the idea that the short form is an endangered species, and here’s why.

In our busy twenty-first century lives, the short story is just the right length to fit into those brief moments when we stop and catch our breath between our daily responsibilities. The short story, regardless of whether it is five hundred or five thousand words long, can slot comfortably into these spaces. We all like to finish things, and being able to start and finish a story in one sitting is satisfying. Where a novel takes an extended commitment of concentration and time, the short story asks much less of you, yet offers so much in return.

Done well, a short story will grab you by the scruff of the neck and press you hard up against life, in all its beauty and ugliness. Andy Kissane’s collection, “The Swarm”, did just that. The opening story, “In My Arms”, deals with the loss of a child – the most painful grief imaginable – yet there is light and hope at the conclusion of the story. By cleverly linking the first and last stories, Kissane brings the reader full circle, creating a feeling of completion.

The last story, “A Mirror to the World”, stayed with me long after I had read that final sentence and closed the book. “In My Arms” was equally as affecting, though in a different way, as if it had taken an alternate route to my heart. Both stories are filled with sadness and loss, with some of the worst experiences the world can present to us. The actions and reactions of the characters are to be expected given the situations they have been written into.

One difference I felt between the two stories was the way I read them, the way I felt while reading them. With “In My Arms”, I had the sense of looking down and watching the events unfold, of being ‘apart from’, rather than ‘immersed in’, the story. A detached observer, though the sadness still reached me.

The opposite was true of “A Mirror to the World” – which is what most writers do with their writing; show the reader a reflection of the world around them. I experienced this story more closely, intimately. This may, in part, have been the form the story took, which was a writer (Kissane) writing about a writer, writing. This can be tedious when done badly or for no real reason, but I felt Kissane knew exactly what he was doing. By structuring the story in this way, he has helped the reader take it in less quickly. By slowing us down, he has allowed us to digest the tragedy in bites, rather than choke on its intensity.

The difference in the way I experienced these two particular stories could simply have been the order in which I read them. When I read the first story, Kissane was a author that was new to me. By the last story, I was more familiar with the writer and his style; this may explain why I felt more immersed in the final story of the collection. Also, knowing the book was coming to an end, perhaps I wanted to savour that final story, like the last spoonful of desert at the end of a good meal.

The character M. Chagall in “The Illusive Tenant” was particularly interesting to me. Though he was not a major player in the story, the front story at least, he plays such a large part within the context of it. His surrealist art leaches out into the fabric of the story until the story itself becomes a written version of surrealism. It was surprising and entertaining. For me, this story stood on its own, spot lit, within the collection.

Kissane’s stories are not complex or filled with action and movement, but each satisfies in its own way. They encourage the reader to participate, imagining what lies outside the confines of the words on the page. As Samuel Johnson once said, “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it”. I’m glad I had the opportunity to read “The Swarm” and become familiar with this writer’s work. There is a skill to writing a good short story. Every word must count; must earn its right to be there. Kissane clearly knows this. There is nothing superfluous here.

A Sport and a Pastime - Review

I wanted to love this book. I didn’t. It didn’t satisfy.

I need to be gripped by a story and dragged headlong through it. I want to regret closing the book so I can sleep. I want to race through to the last chapters and then slow down because I don’t want it to end. Because it was that good.

Salter’s language was delicious. The sound of the words, the way he combined them, the rhythm and shape of the sentences. The eroticism. The sometimes surprising frankness was refreshing and delightful. Not since reading Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender have I thought so much about the language of a story, the author’s choice of words. But the story (A Sport…) itself didn’t grip me. I found myself resisting picking it up again. Found myself disconnected from the characters. It felt as though giving them names was an afterthought, and they were there only as vehicles to drive the language of the book.

I remember feeling a little like this while reading Surrender too – as though the writer was keeping me from fully entering the story by ensuring I oohed and ahhed over the language and sentence structure. Like Surrender, A Sport and a Pastime’s language is luminous and poetic and exciting. It rolls from the tongue plump and juicy. It sounds like music to the ears. But for all that this adds and shows the skill and deft touch of the writer, for me. It also takes away from the experience of reading.

I need to be immersed, not only in the language but in the story itself. I want to connect with the characters, to feel as though I am personally involved in their story, and to be swept away by it. I didn’t really care about Dean and Anne-Marie, nor did I care about or for the mystery narrator – though they at least had some substance. The other characters felt more like cardboard cutouts there only to populate a scene.

I am in awe of Salter’s skills as a writer, but I need more than beautiful words. I need a compelling story, and characters I can care about.

The draw of the Dystopian novel

I am drawn to the dystopian novel. Perhaps it's because I've lost my faith in the happy ending; or perhaps I never had faith in it to start with. I have long been a fan of anything a little dark, a little menacing. I'm too much of a realist, not enough of a romantic, I suppose. I like the stories I read to be gritty, messy, complicated - because that's how life is. I thought I'd write something about two books I've read recently that fit that description.


White Horse (2012 Simon & Schuster) is the debut novel of Alex Adams, and is most accurately described as a 'post-pandemic' novel. The story is reminiscent of McCarthy's The Road, but is not so much a journey to 'somewhere' as a journey to 'someone'.  Zoe, a cleaner at Pope Pharmaceuticals, is the unwitting catalyst of a deadly virus. She travels through a changed and dangerous world but she has hope and humanity. She is prepared to travel across the world to find Nick, but will her journey be in vain? A fabulous debut by a talented female writer. 


Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go (2005 Faber & Faber) was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in the year of it's publication. This novel is best described as an 'alternate history'.  The story is narrated by Kathy H as she reminisces on her childhood at Hailsham, a boarding school in what seems an idyllic 1960's country England setting, and her friendship with Ruth and Tommy D.  As you read you become aware Kathy's naive and almost immature voice. You sense she is different. There is a business-like detachment in the way she tells the story, almost a lack of feeling and yet you feel for Kathy and Tommy and Ruth. I came across the movie by accident and was so moved by it that I immediately went looking for the book. Read the book first if you can.

I like books that have a certain degree of menace and the possibility for tragedy. I think tragedy is filled with the opportunity for greatness - for growth, compassion, selflessness, heroics. After all, courage is not a lack of fear, but action in the face of that fear. Whether the guy gets the girl or vice versa doesn't really do it for me. There must be insurmountable odds to the getting and it's perfectly okay by me if they don't. Sometimes that's the whole point.

Last Days of Summer - Vicki Thornton - Review

Vicki Thornton is a Victorian writer who lives in the picturesque Dandenongs. Last Days of Summer (Mockingbird) is her first collection of short stories.

Thornton’s style is sparse, her stories brief. Brief enough to fill the smallest moments in a day. Those moments between the usual domestic chores and family pressures, but though the stories are brief they have a depth and subtlety that can linger for hours or days. Longer.

In ‘For a Moment’ we are introduced to Billie, as seen through the eyes of an innocent unnamed girl; as someone wise, someone worth seeking out, someone to sit beside quietly and listen to. We also see Billie through the unforgiving eyes of the girl’s mother, as a homeless person, someone to distrust, someone to avoid. It’s all a matter of perspective. Billie might seem to be someone worthy of pity; she is poor, old and homeless, but she is also independent; free. She rejects the entanglements of the material world, chooses for herself how she will live and how she will die.

In ‘Aerodynamics of Love’, the writer experiments with structure as she dissects and deconstructs a relationship with perfect detachment. The structure itself gives added meaning to the story. Each word is necessary. Believable. There is no need for embellishment.

‘Cicada Song’ reads like a list. This is a story of summer holidays by the beach, a story of childhood. The memories are specific yet there is much for the reader to relate to. These are happy memories tinged with sadness and loss. In childhood, feelings—happy, sad— are equal and depend on each other for context. In adulthood, memories are often the same.

In ‘The Sweetness of Musk’ we are plunged into Jake’s world; a small rural town gripped by drought, where everything is either dead or dying. Jake is a child not yet tall enough to see over the lolly counter; naive to the world beyond the boundaries of his town and the future that awaits him, yet in some ways he is old beyond his years and all too aware of what it means to be mortal.

The characters who inhabit these stories are broken; bowed by circumstance, steeped in sorrow. Thornton lays bare their secret lives, exposes what is usually kept hidden from public view. It is human nature to hide parts of ourselves; to wear a mask. Thornton’s characters are people caught at their most vulnerable, with their faces naked and their private lives on show.

You probably won’t laugh while reading these stories, but you may feel uncomfortable, and you will think. Through her choice of topic, Thornton’s collection explores what it is to be human – the doubt, the struggle, the simple joys, the pain.