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...