2ser Book Club

Lona is nineteen. She’s dropped out of uni but still sneaks in to use the photo lab. Lona longs for life to be bigger than the collection of mundane events that her friends and family keep drawing her back into. She’s constantly bemoaning social niceties but also longing for her friends to provide the momentum she needs to not just disappear.

Do you remember that feeling in life before you had everything figured out. That feeling of unlimited potential and absolutely soul-shattering uncertainty because everyone’s telling you that they know the right thing better than you do. Lona’s moving through life insubstantial “...she’s barely touching it, barely any place long enough to make an impact.”

And that’s it… Lona is pretty aimless and she’s not sure what to do about it…

If this were in black & white (ok, all books are technically in black & white) with a cool grunge soundtrack I would be riffing on the nineties vibe. As it goes Georgina Young may have written the best worst book for our socially locked in times.

Ok Lona gets to go out and she gets to date (in crowds). Her share house situation is definitely not what you want to be locked down in. But despite all this Lona has a lot to say about being there for yourself.

Lona struggles to be herself around others but that’s because she hasn’t quite figured out how to be herself around herself. She’s selfish and I vacillated in my feelings for her. In prioritising herself though she firmly acknowledges that there’s nothing else she can give until she looks out for her.

Lona is also about art in its many forms and what art could mean in our world. For starters Lona wants art to be about something and she isn’t into all the navel gazing. The book strikes its own visual style (again, remarkable for black type on white page) which lent it that feel of being indie and of a time and place.

I really enjoyed Georgina Young’s Loner for what it said about searching, even if it just says it’s ok to do it...

Rawah Arja’s The F Team is set at Punchbowl Boys High School. Tariq and his friends in year ten have heard their entire lives that there is something wrong with the school. The media paints them as a training ground for terrorists and now the department is threatening to shut them down and disperse the students to other schools.

But Tariq knows that this is his community and despite their attitude, the boys don’t want to lose their school. But what are they willing to do?

When a tough new principle offers the group a chance they are sceptical. They must join students from Cronulla to form a football team. If they can prove not only that they can win but that they can get along there is hope to resurrect the school’s image.

Rawah Arja is a teacher and mentor who has worked with teenage boys. Growing up in the Canterbury area she saw how media depictions of the area wore away at students' self image and their belief that they can be more than the stereotypes they are depicted.

The F Team is a nuanced portrait of the area and features a stunning ensemble cast. Somehow Rawah has crafted deep, affecting portraits of more than a dozen characters and given them satisfying arcs. This gives the story terrific power because while we are concerned for Tariq, Huss, Ibby and PJ it is their relationships and the way these build up the community that give their story meaning.

The story explores the impact of prejudice on these young men’s lives but it does not give them a free pass. At sixteen years old, these are young men whose childhood has been shrouded by media depictions of young muslim men in the wake of the Cronulla riots. Tariq and his friends are severely limited in their abilities to express themselves because they never know when their actions might be given up as just another example of the worst they can be.

Through the football competition we are exposed to the challenges of being a man in a world that expects a certain performance of masculinity. This is juxtaposed with an interest in Slam poetry and the students becoming involved in Bankstown poetry Slam. In both arenas the message is simple and powerful; your words matter so choose them carefully and do not throw them around like weapons because you never know who they will hurt.

In particular the book confronts the problematic attitudes that grow from young men believing that they have a free pass to treat women however they please. Within the world of Slam poetry Tariq must learn that expressing himself is a strength but that expression extends to listening and respecting everyone.

This book is pure Sydney and it is part of a growing body of work that includes Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Felicity Castagna & Randa Abdul Fattah showing us the fullness of the city.

Rawah Arja’s The F Team is set at Punchbowl Boys High School. Tariq and his friends in year ten have heard their entire lives that there is something wrong with the school. The media paints them as a training ground for terrorists and now the department is threatening to shut them down and disperse the students to other schools.

But Tariq knows that this is his community and despite their attitude, the boys don’t want to lose their school. But what are they willing to do?

When a tough new principle offers the group a chance they are sceptical. They must join students from Cronulla to form a football team. If they can prove not only that they can win but that they can get along there is hope to resurrect the school’s image.

Rawah Arja is a teacher and mentor who has worked with teenage boys. Growing up in the Canterbury area she saw how media depictions of the area wore away at students' self image and their belief that they can be more than the stereotypes they are depicted.

The F Team is a nuanced portrait of the area and features a stunning ensemble cast. Somehow Rawah has crafted deep, affecting portraits of more than a dozen characters and given them satisfying arcs. This gives the story terrific power because while we are concerned for Tariq, Huss, Ibby and PJ it is their relationships and the way these build up the community that give their story meaning.

The story explores the impact of prejudice on these young men’s lives but it does not give them a free pass. At sixteen years old, these are young men whose childhood has been shrouded by media depictions of young muslim men in the wake of the Cronulla riots. Tariq and his friends are severely limited in their abilities to express themselves because they never know when their actions might be given up as just another example of the worst they can be.

Through the football competition we are exposed to the challenges of being a man in a world that expects a certain performance of masculinity. This is juxtaposed with an interest in Slam poetry and the students becoming involved in Bankstown poetry Slam. In both arenas the message is simple and powerful; your words matter so choose them carefully and do not throw them around like weapons because you never know who they will hurt.

In particular the book confronts the problematic attitudes that grow from young men believing that they have a free pass to treat women however they please. Within the world of Slam poetry Tariq must learn that expressing himself is a strength but that expression extends to listening and respecting everyone.

This book is pure Sydney and it is part of a growing body of work that includes Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Felicity Castagna & Randa Abdul Fattah showing us the fullness of the city.

When you're young a series can really capture your imagination. The books draw you in and give you a hero who's just like you to identify and grow with.

For my mind if you want some fantasy in your life you needn’t go further than Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Within the forty plus books Pratchett penned in the Discworld is a series for younger readers centring on a young girl from a rural area of the Disc called the Chalk.

Tiffany is nine-years old when we first meet her lying by a river. She promptly dispatches a river monster with a frying pan and befriends a group of small blue men. Only the first of many signs that Tiffany is not your ordinary girl.

It soon becomes apparent that Tiffany is a witch and while witches aren’t supposed to grow on Chalk that doesn’t mean she won’t have to figure out her power to stop all manner of beasties coming for her.

Fortunately Tiffany will have help. The tiny blue men are Nac Mac Feegle, pictsies who can fight their way out of anything (except a pub). The Nac Mac Feegle used to work for the fairy queen, but were booted out of fairy land for fighting (so they say). They believe they are in heaven (because of the things on earth to drink or fight) and when they die they return to the real world.

Terry Pratchett penned five Tiffany Aching novels between 2003 and 2015. Despite not being a younger reader I read Tiffany’s adventures contemporaneously to their release and was absolutely devastated when I finished The Shepard’s Crown. It was Pratchett’s last novel, published after his death, and while a fitting farewell it made me immensely sad to say goodbye.

The magic of the Tiffany Aching books is that despite their central theme of witchcraft and fairy folk they are distinctly grounded. As Tiffany learns how to be a witch she is guided by the best in the land. Granny Weatherwax is a highlight of the Discworld and perhaps the character most closely associated with Pratchett himself. Strong and practical, she guides Tiffany to use her head and worry more about people than magic.

Tiffany is an avid learner. She looks at everyone fairy, human or small blue brawler alike and tries to understand the person. So it is that Tiffany develops his second sight (and then her third sight) distinctive ways of looking at a problem from a range of perspectives. The magic of Tiffany’s world is most closely associated with what Granny Weatherwax calls headology; a way of taking each person on their merits and their circumstances and treating them with respect if not also a little caution.

I’m re-reading these books at the moment (the first two books are The Wee Free Men and Hat Full of Sky) and I’m marvelling at how Pratchett writes for everyone with such panache. It’s not that he’s crafted a book for children that adults will also get the special ‘adult’ jokes. Pratchett gets that we are all living in the same world and just because you are a smaller size of human doesn’t mean you should be condescended to.

Tiffany Aching is an incredible character for all readers but if I had a small person that I wanted to inspire I’d definitely introduce them to this young witch from the Chalk.

Kate and Joel Temple are fantastic writers of books for younger children. They are the authors of, as they describe it, silly books for kids; some of them long, some of them short, some of them rhyming and others that don’t. They even have a book that’s an ode to that most fantastic of Australian birds. Of course it’s called Bin Chicken, so you know good people all round!

The third in Kate and Jol’s Yours Trooly Alice Toolie series is The Battle of Book Week.

In the Battle of Book Week Alice Toolie has secured the coveted title of library monitor and has some ingenious ideas for making it a spectacular event. But Jimmy simply won’t let her trample all over his borrowing rights and runs against her for library monitor status. Who will prevail and will it steal the thunder of the not particularly famous authors coming to visit the school?!

The Alice Toolie series are epistolary novels paying homage to passing notes in class… is what I would say if I was a far too serious book reviewer type who cannot fathom being young.

Alice and Jimmy write notes, scribble in books and generally cause havoc in the name of being the best in their primary school.

These books are infused with a genuine love of books and reading. Alice and Jimmy are fighting with each other over borrowing books and how much (and how fast) they can read them. If you were a parent worried that your child was highly susceptible to taking on pop-culture tropes then give them this series and let them go to town!

The novels are knowing and smart, while still being frenetic and fun. Kate and Jol know how to make fun of everything (including themselves) and that opens up a world of imagination all within the suburban classroom.

We may not be getting dressed up in the same way for book parades (although as a side note Book Week is still on, it’s postponed to October) that may mean a little more spare time to read together and share books with the younger readers in your life!

Christopher Raja - Into the Suburbs

Christopher Raja is the author of plays, essays and a novel The Burning Elephant. His memoir Into the suburbs is Christopher’s story of leaving Calcutta and beginning a life in Melbourne.

I do not read a lot of memoir, perhaps to my detriment, but there was something about the cover and conceit of Into the Suburbs that drew me in. This is not an exhaustive tale of Christopher Raja’s life to the present day, but rather an exploration of what it means to be dislocated and to search for meaning and an idea of home in a new place.

Chris was eleven years old when his mother and father moved the family from Calcutta to Melbourne in the 1980s. The contrast is immediate; from the densely populated streets of Calcutta he is transported to a world that is almost unbearably quiet. Where previously he had family surrounding him, not even his relatives keep to their manicured quarter acre blocks.

There is something in the title that suggests an expedition. A journey of discovery of lands uncharted or poorly understood. At least that’s how I understood it. I grew up in the suburbs and I’ve never felt I really understood these liminal zones between city and country. Here in Sydney we are so territorial of our suburban allegiances but how does this culture come into being, let alone become exclusive?

The young Chris is thrown headlong into a world of school and peers that will exert forces subtle and brutal to extract conformity. He reflects that “in Australia it seemed boys were brought up to self-destruct and be reckless” and it breeds in him a shift towards rebellion. In this world he will face racism for being brown even as he is taught that the indigenous people of the land he lives on look more like him. In the history classes of the eighties he is taught that Aboriginal people are dying out while he befriends a new boy at school who is Aboriginal and far from fading away.

As the adolescent Christopher faces down this world that dangles acceptance before his eyes, he moves farther away from the values and opportunities his parents want him to embrace. These values are not the shield he needs to deflect racist assaults nor to become one with the mix of his peers.

At a family BBQ Chris overhears a relative confess “Not all of us can become Australians. However hard we try.” Whether this is the result of individual effort or white gate-keeping it highlights one of the core themes of Into the Suburbs; this strange and malleable notion of Australian-ness does not exist equally for all.

Into the Suburbs is a fascinating exploration of a life, a time and the idea that home is there waiting to be found.

Victoria Hannan’s - Kokomo

Victoria Hannan is a writer and photographer living in Melbourne. Kokomo, her first novel, was the winner of the 2019 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, and let me just give you a little context.

The Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript over the last decade has seen the likes of Peggy Frew, Graeme Simsin, Maxine Beneba Clark, Jane Harper and Melanie Cheng take out the prize before going on to being some of our most successful and important writers.

As we begin, Mina has lived in London for seven years. She’s got a good job, nice apartment and things are looking pretty good with Jack.

Back home Mina’s mum Elaine hasn’t left the house for eleven years. That’s just the way things have been since Mina’s dad died. Mina’s life is looking pretty good until a call arrives from Melbourne “Mina it’s your mum, she’s left the house”.

Mina returns to Melbourne. To a home unchanged and a woman who is closed off and taciturn; unwilling to share the pain she holds inside. Mina also returns to a world that believes she left it. Friends greet her with joy, but are unwilling to go too far to bridge the gulf that has opened up between them.

In a scene in a karaoke bar, Mina cynically tells her ex-boyfriend Ben that the Kokomo the Beach Boys are singing about isn’t a real place. The Kokomo of the song is an industrial city in the middle of America but the band have crafted a beautiful illusion that allows us to float away to paradise if we simply suspend our disbelief.

Hannan’s Kokomo similarly asks us whether we can live our lives in a fantasy land of our own making. The answer is not so simple as you might assume. We are shown lies propped up by the victims desire to believe and lies that exist only in the hearts and minds of the person being lied to. These comfortable lies that keep us going suddenly loom large when shown across the perspective of a lifetime.

Kokomo shifts perspectives between Mina and Elaine, slowly unravelling their pasts and present. The effect is to complicate seemingly known events and challenge our assumptions of how love, family and trust work, even between people who have shared so much.

The novel is heartbreaking, funny, gross and gorgeous. Hannan dares to show us those moments we’d prefer forgotten and that gives this book enormous heart.

In a time where all our daily comforts are seemingly lost to a brave new world where our actions impact the health of the nation, Kokomo shows us that we must always be willing to stare truth in the face and hold true to ourselves...

After Australia

I think there are a lot of ways you can approach a short story collection and After Australia absolutely hits all of these…

Perhaps you’re looking for a way to discover new Australian writing and writers? Well, After Australia has a selection of twelve incredible Indigenous Writers and Writers of Colour including Ambellin Kwaymullina, Karen Wyld, Omar Sakr, Future D Fidel and Zoya Patel.

Maybe you like reading a story in a single sitting? After Australia is like a moreish pack of mixed lollies that you promise yourself your only going to have one of but end up finishing way more than intended.

Maybe you love writing around a theme that lets you explore ideas from different perspectives. Well After Australia promises to imagine an alternate Australia - after empire, after colony, after white supremacy.

See After Australia is the book we’ve needed but perhaps didn’t know it. As we all try to come to grips with the impact of pandemic on our lives it is unavoidable that the structural imbalances in our society are tipping further against marginalised communities.

After Australia seeks futures where these balances are challenged, inverted or perhaps simply upended as environmental destruction flips the game board.

In a collection like this there’s simply so much to talk about. I’m going to hone in on one story to give you all an idea of what After Australia has on offer…

Claire G Coleman’s Ostraka takes us into the searing heat of an isolated, remote compound. An individual waits against the chain-link fence in a seeming prison of inertia. Around the compound are others; pale skin turning a vivid, painful scarlet in the unforgiving heat.

It is Australia’s near future and the government has enacted the Ostraka law. Hearkening back to classical Athenian democracy the Ostrakismos gives the body politic the power to ostracise citizens. But who is to be ostracised and why?!

In Ostraka Claire does so much in a very short space. The pain and remoteness of ostracism is immediately apparent in the harsh environment, as is the purgatory of uncertainty as the lawyers line up periodically to give their clients next to no news.

Ostraka complicates this narrative though as it shows us the Ostraka laws were seemingly built around the established precedent of offshore detention and individuals are buried under mountains of go nowhere paperwork.

The callous inhumanity of the existing system of offshore and endless detention is highlighted simply by applying it to everyday people (and by everyday let’s just understand we mean white and middle class).

So do we hate the increasingly authoritarian government that through mission creep might one day enact such laws? Or do we hate ourselves for being willfully blind as it happened to others, only to sit up when it happened to us? Maybe we should thank Claire G Coleman for showing us this vision, so that we might do something before it’s too late.

And that’s just a sampling! After Australia is a mighty collection of twelve incredible Indigenous Writers and Writers of Colour, it’s been edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad who is the founding director of Sweatshop Western Sydney Writers Collective. It’s a book that’s able to look our historical moment square in the eye and it has a lot to say to Australia today...

Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott was a 2019 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist and won the Margaret Scott Prize in the 2019 Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prizes. Flames was his debut in 2018 and it went on to get shortlisted on seemingly every literary prize list.

The Rain Heron is Robbie’s second novel and it follows on in Flames tradition of fantastical and thought provoking storytelling.

In the forest near a small town Ren has driven herself to a life of solitude after her world was torn apart by the violence of a military coup that has overtaken the country. Ren lives by her wits; hunting and bartering with a local man for the bare necessities of life.

When the military arrive, lead by the brutally resourceful Harker, Ren believes she can outlast them. But the military have set their sights on an impossibility. The mythical Rain Heron is the stuff of legend, but Harker has been tasked with finding it and bringing it back and she believes Ren knows where it is…

I’m fast learning that when you pick up a book by Robbie Arnott you are in for an experience unlike any other. Whilst his writing contains the fantastical, it exists within a world that is uncommonly familiar.

The world of The Rain Heron is an unnamed country of extraordinary geographical variety. As we traverse its terrain we are followed by the spectre of turmoil as the military coup that unsettled the country struggles to maintain its power.

The Rain Heron is a book about belief, mythology and the spaces between our understanding. To this end the creatures of myth; a bird made out of a storm and a vicious flesh eating squid are visceral realities while the imposing force of government and military authority loom dangerously in the background.

Into this space emerge the people who must always be the subject of life.

And so we see Ren, who defines society by her opposition to it and must reconcile her isolation as the last shreds of her civilization are destroyed.

We have Zoe, who has already lost so much face off against creeping industrialisation that threatens to destroy her small coastal town.

And Harker who has shed so much of her humanity to become a soldier and must decide what more she can give to capture the Rain Heron.

Robbie writes compelling stories and sometimes I forget to mention the skill in that writing. The Rain Heron contains two incredible beasts that at times seem more like forces of nature. Robbie’s writing brings to life these creatures in a whirl of wind and rain, tooth and claw that is equally terrifying and wonderous.

His style is so visual and engaging it’s no surprise that Flames has been picked up to turn into a series that I seriously hope gets made in some post Coviud world we are all looking forward to.

Till then The Rain Heron is an incredible look at the lives we live in a world where myths seem more real than the forces controlling our society...

Kay Kerr is a freelance writer, author and former community newspaper editor. Her debut novel is Please Don’t Hug Me and it is out now from Text Publishing.

Please Don’t Hug Me is the story of Erin. Erin is completing high school and has her sights set on schoolies as the unofficial finishing line. She’s juggling study, friends and keeping a job that will allow her to pay for the trip.

Erin is also on the autism spectrum but only a few people know. She’s got her best friend Dee, who is always ready with doughnuts to fix a bad day. Dee has been her rock for years but Dee is also talking about taking a gap year at the end of year twelve, so where does that leave their friendship?

Erin’s new friend Aggie seems to always know the right thing to say. Aggie seems to effortlessly make everything look easy and Erin doesn’t know if her life will ever look like that.

Please Don’t Hug Me is an epistolary novel, which is a story told through letters and correspondence. Erin is writing almost daily letters to her brother chronicling her life at school and yearning for his guidance navigating the social speed bumps of year twelve.

This narrative style creates an interesting tension precisely because we only hear Erin’s voice. Rudy does not write back and his silence creates an opening in which Erin must forge her own path.

The title Please Don’t Hug Me refers to Erin’s need to communicate that she doesn’t like hugs the way everyone else seems to. This is part of her sensory needs on the Autism Spectrum. Erin feels like she’s constantly out of sync with people around her but she also has unique and hard won insights into herself and her friends.

Erin’s perspectives open up the world of her school and her friends as she tries to figure out how her brain fits in with the neurotypical brains around her. Erin learns that people don’t want to hear about negative emotions and that society has different standards for her as a woman.

In shaping Erin’s letters Kay Kerr is opening an experience of the Autism Spectrum in the life of a young woman. She shows us how Erin’s struggles are both unique and also familiar. Erin knows she must work hard to figure out what is typical and expected and that even when she works that out, these things might not make her happy or even fit who she is.

Kay’s narrative is an important work for its representation of a character on the Autism Spectrum outside of the stereotypes that too often permeate popular depictions. It’s also an important work in its challenge of social norms around gender, race and cultural stereotypes that through Erin’s eyes are bonds that hold people back when they should be moving forward.

Kay Kerr’s Please Don’t Hug Me has a stunning pink and doughnut cover. It’s out through Text and I’d highly recommend checking it out.