'What Zola Did on Monday' by Melina Marchetta, illustrated by Deb Hudson

Received from the Publisher 

From the BLURB: 

From the author of Looking for Alibrandi comes this gorgeous series to engage and entertain newly independent young readers. 

Zola loves living on Boomerang Street with her mum and her nonna. Every day of the week is an adventure. But Zola has a problem. No matter how much she tries, she can't keep out of trouble! Seven stories in the series – one for every day of the week.

*** 

What Zola Did on Monday by Melina Marchetta and illustrated by Deb Hudson is a beautiful story (the first in a 7-day series) and perfect for early readers aged 5+. It’s a truly gorgeous rendition of memory and grief - tempered in the perfect way for kids and so filled with family and happiness too. 

And oh, the dogs ☺️ 

Nobody will be surprised that this is another stunning addition to Marchetta’s list; a way to talk about family and complex emotions with a new readership who will benefit from the empathetic intelligence she always imparts.

5/5

‘The Place on Dalhousie’ by Melina Marchetta

Receive from the Publisher 

From the BLURB:

'You look the type to break your father’s heart.'
'Yeah, but he broke mine first.’

When Rosie Gennaro first meets Jimmy Hailler, she has walked away from life in Sydney, leaving behind the place on Dalhousie that her father, Seb, painstakingly rebuilt for his family but never saw completed. Two years later, Rosie returns to the house and living there is Martha, whom Seb Gennaro married less than a year after the death of Rosie’s mother. Martha is struggling to fulfil Seb’s dream, while Rosie is coming to terms with new responsibilities. And so begins a stand-off between two women who refuse to move out of the home they both lay claim to.

As the battle lines are drawn, Jimmy Hailler re-enters Rosie’s life. Having always watched other families from the perimeters, he’s now grappling, heartbreakingly, with forming one of his own . . .

An unforgettable story about losing love and finding love; about the interconnectedness of lives and the true nature of belonging, from one of our most acclaimed writers.

‘The Place on Dalhousie’ is the new contemporary fiction novel from Australian author Melina Marchetta. It can be read as a sequel-of-sorts, to where many of the characters within first appeared; in Saving Francesca as teenagers in 2003, and then again in 2010 with The Piper’s Son as young adults. But Dalhousie can also be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone for newcomers to Marchetta’s writing.

Avid readers though, will also be pleased to learn that two teasing shorts Melina wrote in the lead-up to this story being told, do appear within; ‘When Rosie Met Jim’ from Review of Australian Fiction, and ‘The Centre’ from the Just Between Us anthology.

But first – a bit of background on the momentousness of this release.

Since Francesca came out in 2003, one name has haunted and delighted devout fans of Melina Marchetta’s books – Jimmy Hailler. He was the weird boy that Francesca Spinelli’s disparate friends and broken family collected and gathered close during the events of that book. He is a character that Melina has spoken lovingly about at book events, as being inspired by the students she met during her teaching at an all-boys school. In the beginning of Saving Francesca there appeared to be something a bit “off” about Jimmy – like maybe he was just the bully, one to steer away from. But over the course of that story his decency shone through; he was still quirky and with a lonely broken family, but it became apparent that he was fiercely loyal and caring too.

Jimmy’s absence from 2010 follow-up book The Piper’s Son was deeply felt – not just by the characters, but the readers too – as it’s revealed after some loss and heartbreak again in his life, Jimmy had taken off to God knows where during the events of that book … in the interim after The Piper’s Son and every time I attended a Melina event, or read an interview with her – the question of Jimmy would inevitably come up. Much like his friends Frankie, Tara, Tom, Justine, Siobhan and their collective families – readers were worried about him, and wanted to know if he was okay. More importantly – they wanted to know if Melina would ever write his story (which is the same thing, in a way.)

Much as there’s always been something innately lonely about Jimmy, he struck me as a character who best thrived from contact and the collective – so it didn’t surprise me in the least, when I first learned that when she told it, Jimmy’s story wouldn’t be his alone … rather The Place on Dalhousie is Jimmy’s story, and that of the girl that disaster and chance place into his life, as well as that girl’s stepmother whom she has a fraught relationship with. 

Jimmy seemed to shine brightest when he was surrounded, nurtured, and uplifted by the women in his life – Mia Spinelli, Frankie, Tara, Justine, and Siobhan – so it feels utterly right and natural that in Dalhousie we get three points of view of not only Jimmy, but Rosie (the girl) and her stepmother (Martha) too.

Jimmy and Rosie meet in a Queensland flood in 2010, and then have to reconnect 15-months later in Sydney, when Rosie moves back into her childhood home. The home that her father, Seb, built for her and her mother Loredana – who died of cancer when Rosie was 15, and before the house was finished. Seb married Martha 11 months after her mother died, and Rosie never forgave him – not really – and not even after he died just before she turned 18.

What Jimmy walks into is a house divided – literally – and about to be finished for the first time since Seb conceived it. Rosie is living upstairs, Martha downstairs at Dalhousie Street, neither of them willing to give ground or back down – Martha wants to sell the place and split the money with Rosie, Rosie just wants Martha gone.  

And this is the fraught setting of the story – at the heart of a family. It’s a book of divisions; not just of the upstairs/downstairs nature of co-existing within the setting, but of divisions within themselves and who they want to be … which sometimes means leaving behind who they were.

And that’s all I’ll say on the story.

I started reading these books when I was 16 – the year Saving Francesca came out. And then when The Piper’s Son released, I was 23. I’m 31 this year, and I continue to be gratefully shocked at the timing of Marchetta’s release for these books and characters, who I’m glad seem to follow me to milestones as they live their fictional own. The Place on Dalhousie slotted into my heart as easily as those first two books, and without giving too much away I’ll only say that … Jimmy’s okay. And that’s all I wanted from this story – but I got it, and so much more.

Melina’s characters have started echoing for me, and I was so glad for those ripples in Dalhousie. It’s not repetition, but foundation that I appreciate – this realisation that one has to come before the other for a story to begin. I felt that about Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil; that read to me like a companion to The Piper's Son. And it’s never more clear to me than in Dalhousie – at the way Melina has written another fiercely complex and messy young woman in Rosie, who I think would get along smashingly with Taylor Markham from On The Jellicoe Road, Quintana of Charyn from The Lumatere Chronicles and Violette Zidane from Tell the Truth. I can think of no higher praise for Melina, than saying that she writes young female characters who don’t give a shit if you like them or not – they’ve been through enough in their life, and trying to be “likeable” and “nice” is low on their list of priorities, and not nearly as important as learning to trust themselves and who to let into their complicated lives. Their flaws make these characters more interesting – not less likeable. Melina makes you work to really know these women, and to love them – but once you do, there’s no going back (as true for readers as other characters).

I could say that Martha reminds me of Georgie from The Piper’s Son – only because Melina continues to write women of a certain age who are otherwise forgotten in fiction (be it books, TV or film) – she continues to give them interesting high-stakes when society tells them they’re out of the game, and never more than in matters of the heart (Georgie and Sam from Piper’s and Trevanion and Beatriss from Lumatere are among my favourite romances of any book – but go back and read any Melina Marchetta novel and see how effortlessly she weaves interesting intergenerational stories for women of all ages.) I especially got goosebumps when Melina touches on this erasure of older women in the form of back-story for Rosie’s Sicilian grandmother, Eugenia. But actually, something of Martha reminds me of Frankie; in the way they are both the hub for their friends and family, maybe without always meaning to be.

And Jimmy. I have long thought that Jimmy’s fictional familiar was Froi, from The Lumatere Chronicles – and for so long I thought it was their tragedies that echoed for me. But something clicked with Dalhousie, and a line that Froi says in Quintana of Charyn, when he tells another character; 

‘One day,’ Froi said, clearing his voice of emotion, ‘I’ll introduce you to my queen and my king and my captain; and Lord August and Lady Abian, who have given me a home; and the Priestking and Perri and Tesadora and my friend Lucian; and then you’ll understand that I would never have met them if you hadn’t journeyed to Sarnak all those years ago, Arjuro. And if the gods were to give me a choice between living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the slightest chance of crossing their path, then I'd pick the wretched life over and over again.’ 

Ah, that’s Jimmy. That’s his story; ‘And if the gods were to give me a choice between living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the slightest chance of crossing their path, then I'd pick the wretched life over and over again.’

He’s the character who’s had the toughest life of all his friends. He’s the one that we’ve all worried about the most, have waited for Melina to tell us that he’s okay.

But that’s the thing – he would choose the wretched life over and over again, because it lead him here. To Rosie, and Martha. Back to his friends in Sydney (yes, all of them) coming together again like they did when they first started collecting each other in school. And that wretched life leads him to this house and a life, on Dalhousie.

I thought I pitied Jimmy for the longest time, but here I see my true affection for him – for all these characters, really – lies in accepting the good with the bad. Their flaws and imperfections made them real to me, and I love them more for it. And I am going to miss them so terribly, if this book really is the end.

But I do leave them here I think, somewhere in Leichhardt (or Stuttgart, London, a little town in Queensland, walking around Haberfield, about to board a train at Central…) being messy and carrying on their lives – making mistakes and seeing them through, being happy and sad but always together, even when they’re apart.

These characters really do feel like friends, probably because they helped in introducing me to so many in real life (those of us who have grown up around Melina’s stories, and found each other because of them). 

My God I am going to miss them, but I cannot thank the universe enough that they crossed my path …

5/5 

'When Rosie met Jim' short-story by Melina Marchetta

From Melina’s Facebook post:

The Review of Australian Fiction (reviewofaustralianfiction.com) has a great concept where a well-established writer asks a talented writer, who may be lesser known, to also submit a short story…

My short story is called When Rosie met Jim. It’s about a young woman who finds herself stranded in a Queensland town during a flood, where she meets a guy named Jim. (the title is quite literal, and yes, it’s him for those who know my previous work).

Mine will be the first chapter of the novel I’m writing, which unlike the short story, is set in the same part of Sydney I tend to write about in my contemporary novels.

Here’s the first line;

It’s rained for forty days and forty nights, so when a guy who looks like Jesus in orange SES overalls comes to stand next to her, Rosie thinks it’s all a bit biblical.

  

*** 

I was lucky enough to be sent a sneaky early copy of ‘When Rosie Met Jim’ … and for anyone who knows me even a little, you’ll know what a big deal it was for me to start reading this story. And if you don’t know me at all – well, – here I am in a Buzzfeed article, writing about how Melina Marchetta basically changed my life.

‘When Rosie met Jim’ landed in my inbox when I was at Sydney airport, flying home after the Writers’ Festival. I glanced at my phone, felt a rush of blood to the head and heart … then promptly walked to my gate, sat down and started reading. And crying.

I was crying because it’s kinda sad. And beautiful. But mostly I was crying because I’ve missed these characters … well, character in Jimmy Hailler (though others are alluded to). He first appeared in the 2003 novel ‘Saving Francesca’ – then was conspicuously absent (but mentioned) in Melina’s follow-up, 2010 novel ‘The Piper’s Son’. 

I’ve worried about Jim in the intervening years. I have wondered what he’s up to, if he’s okay, and who he loves. ‘When Rosie met Jim’ is but a taste of those questions about to be answered in a full-length novel.

This teaser also includes our meeting Rosie – the female protagonist of said novel. And what comes across so achingly clearly in this short story is how lonely Rosie is. And Jim too.

He’s gone when she wakes in the morning and she’s relieved they don’t have to do the polite stuff. Outside, it’s drizzling and steamy and her tee shirt’s pasted onto her with the grime that comes from humidity and sweat. A couple of utes and four wheel drives pass her by, packed with possessions being taking to higher ground. Rosie wonders if she’s left it too late to get out of this town.

Rosie, to me though, is another indestructible Marchetta heroine. The moment I read the line "Rosie doesn’t believe in anything hopeful" I instantly thought of Violette and Quintana ... and Taylor Markham. All the warrior women; the defiant ones who stay with you long after the last page. I can’t wait to read her story, and how it’ll (hopefully) become Jim’s story too.

Back in 2010, after I first read ‘The Piper’s Son’ I wrote a review – and hit on the closest thing I think I’ve ever come to explaining what Melina’s novels do to me. What they mean to me; 

… this follow-up book is like catching up with old friends down at the local; we know and love them, we’ve missed them and now they’ve returned, just like we've always known they would.

This is still true – of ‘When Rosie met Jim’ too. And it’s why I cried, because these characters mean something to me. I hold them dear. I hold them dear.

And I’ve missed them. Missed him.

He shakes his head. 

‘It got to me a couple of years ago when my grandpop died and I had to get out of our flat because it was housing commission and someone else was waiting in line for it. And I realized I didn’t have a home so I disappeared for about a year. My friends aren’t the type to let go, which is a good thing, so I ended up back in Sydney couch surfing. A couple of months ago, I’m living with my best mate’s family and she convinces me to track down my mum.’

Thank you, Melina.

'Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil' by Melina Marchetta

From the BLURB:

Melina Marchetta's gripping new novel Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil is a cracking fusion of suspense and heart-rending drama.

Chief Inspector Bish Ortley of the London Met, divorced and still grieving the death of his son, has been drowning his anger in Scotch. Something has to give, and he’s no sooner suspended from the force than a busload of British students is subject to a deadly bomb attack across the Channel. Bish’s daughter is one of those on board.

Also on the bus is Violette LeBrac. Raised in Australia, Violette has a troubled background. Thirteen years ago her grandfather bombed a London supermarket, killing dozens of people. Her mother, Noor, is serving a life sentence in connection with the incident. But before Violette’s part in the French tragedy can be established she disappears.

Bish, who was involved in Noor LeBrac’s arrest, is now compelled to question everything that happened back then. And the more he delves into the lives of the family he helped put away, the more he realises that truth wears many colours.

‘Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil’ is the new novel from Australian author Melina Marchetta.

This latest book is another about-turn for beloved Marchetta, who burst onto the publishing scene with award-winning young adult book ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ in 1992, followed by more YA fare in ‘Saving Francesca’ and Printz-winning ‘On the Jellicoe Road’ (which also has a companion early-reader in ‘The Gorgon in the Gully’). In 2010 she came out with a sort-of sequel to ‘Saving Francesca’ with ‘The Piper’s Son’, which was long-listed for the Miles Franklin award … she then broke away from YA and contemporary tales with critically-acclaimed high-fantasy series ‘Lumatere Chronicles’ spanning three books. And now with ‘Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil,’ Marchetta is breaking new ground yet again – with an adult crime/mystery-thriller, which I think proves her to be Australia’s most versatile author writing today.  

I’ve now re-read this book three times in three months (as I was kindly given an advance copy) – and I’m continually surprised by how much I love it, and new facets I come to admire and uncover in the story. For anyone who is mildly concerned that they won’t get as much enjoyment out of a Melina novel that’s not in the usual genre or readership for her, let me assure you there’s absolutely nothing to worry about – and also, there’s no such thing as “usual” when talking about Melina Marchetta anymore. And that’s a good thing.

For one thing – Marchetta has always written mysteries. From Josie Alibrandi’s parentage, to the truth of Taylor Markham’s abandonment by her mother and how she came to catch a train with Jonah Griggs when they were 14-years-old, even Lumatere Chronicles’ cryptic “there's a babe in my belly that whispers the valley,” and the curse that was lifted … it’s true that most every story ever told has a mystery somewhere at its centre, and Marchetta’s novels have been no different over time. It’s just that in ‘Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil’ she’s really immersing the novel in mystery-thriller as the pivot-point.

But Marchetta’s books – whether contemporary, high fantasy, or now crime-thriller –her books will have family at the centre, always and forever. ‘Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil’ is at once about Chief Inspector Bish Ortley, suspended from the London Met and investigating a bomb attack that came very close to killing his own daughter … but there’s more to the story of Bish; his broken marriage and ex-wife who’s about to give birth to another man’s child, and his daughter – Bee – who has been drifting away from all of them since a terrible accident years ago, and his mother Saffron who has only just come into her own as a grandmother when she was never the maternal sort with Bish growing up. The Ortley’s are one side of this coin, on the other are the LeBrac and Sarraf’s – whom Bish believes to be a deadly crime family paying their dues and serving apt life-sentences for a terrorist act carried out just over a decade ago. But as he starts digging he finds a family full of tragedy and love, history and mystery that needs unravelling – with roots in Alexandria and the Algerian War, who were once a British immigrant success story, condemned in a trial-by-media …

Five dead. More injured. Some badly. It's what happened when you were the son of Louise Sarraf: you became obsessed with victims and numbers and how many people were affected. One dead man meant kids and a wife and parents and brothers and sisters and in-laws and nieces and nephews. Injured kids meant the same. A mother. Father. Two sets of grandparents. Approximately seven aunts and uncles and at least fourteen cousins. Not to mention friends ... Jamal had become a mathematician after his father blew up their lives. The figured tallied based on twenty-three fatalities fucked with his head every time. 

And for those upset that Marchetta has broken away from her YA roots … not quite, either. For one thing – I don’t think Melina is physically capable of not writing about teenagers and young people. And that’s because she clearly has such deep respect for them, and interest in them. When family is always at the heart of her stories, she pays dividends to the important role that younger generation’s play within this dynamic – and that’s never truer than in ‘Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil’ which is inverting the whole “sins of the father” question, by giving real agency (and the entire pivot-point of the mystery) around young people whose family was torn apart, and who have lived in the fallout of their absence ever since. I don’t want to give too much away about the roles that teenagers plays in this book, except to say that it feels somewhat revolutionary for Melina Marchetta to be bringing them into the mystery-thriller genre as agents of change in the plot, instead of – as is usually the case – purely victims of abuse and neglect. As someone who reads a lot of crime and mystery novels, I can tell you this is not always the case … and actually what Marchetta has done is extraordinarily rare and, quite frankly, brilliant.

Later, restless and desperate not to have a drink, Bish scoured the news online. The Guardian, Al Jazeera, the New York Times. The Australian media hadn't made up their mind how they felt yet. At the moment they were identifying Violette as "the British-born French-Arab LeBrac, who went by the name Zidane, which belonged to her Algerian grandmother." Bish couldn't think of how many more hyphens and details they could use to distance themselves from the world's least favourite teenager. What country did Violette LeBrac Zidane belong to? On Twitter, #princec2 was the most eloquent: "She's Australian, you fuckers." 

The other thing I really want to say about Marchetta bringing her voice to this genre is in the character of Bashir “Bish” Ortley. Male leads in mystery-thrillers are nothing new, and quite frankly I’m a bit over them … I tend to gravitate more towards books in this genre with female leads (Dr. Sara Linton in Karin Slaughter’s books, Rev. Clare Fergusson in Julia Spencer-Fleming’s etc). And there was a part of me, when I started reading ‘Tell the Truth’ that was worried Bish would be more of the same that this genre tends to produce – old, grizzled, alcoholic, over-the-hill cop with a heart of gold and inexplicable sway over the opposite sex … but again, this is Marchetta we’re talking about. I came away from this novel with a real appreciation for how much the women steer the story – and Bish. From Noor LeBrac and Violette Zidane to Bish’s mother Saffron, his daughter Bee, wife Rachel, a whip-smart solicitor called Layla Barat ... Bish may be the character we follow for most of the story (with a few chapters from others’) and he may be Chief Inspector Ortley doing all the gum-shoeing on this case, but he’s very much being led by the women. Because they’re smart. And fierce. They know what they want – and they go after it. Bish is really just along for the ride and at their mercy, because the women always rule in a Melina Marchetta novel. Always. And Bish is the better for it by book's end, and I came to completely admire him. 

There’s just something about this novel that has stuck with me, and I can’t shake this feeling of deep gratitude – for another brilliant story from this writer who means so much to me – but also for this story that got me thinking so deeply about issues that are impacting the world today … So much is touched on here; refugees and asylum seekers, trial by media, the dubious justice of anti-terror laws and torture, Islamophobia, vigilantism and social-media, the creep of political power-plays, and so much more. Something about this book and Marchetta’s writing in this genre reminds me of ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’ by Eduardo Sacheri (which has been adapted into two films, but I prefer the 2009 Argentine/Spanish version) – in that layering of the personal and criminal, suspense in the crime itself as well as the hair-trigger personalities of the players involved … Marchetta feels utterly at home in this genre, like she’s been writing in it all her life (which she has, to a degree) and I can only hope this isn’t the last we’ll see of Bish Ortley and co. There are certainly seeds and threads planted in this book – particularly around the lawless treatment of asylum seekers who are stuck in limbo, and preyed upon for it – that feels like fertile and important ground for more mystery-thriller tales. Displacement, home, identity, and family – nobody writes about this better than Marchetta for me, and her bringing these themes to this genre is acknowledging something truly profound.

There’s so much I loved in this book – not least was the way it fits for me, like a puzzle piece within Marchetta’s other stories … there are lines here connecting them all for me, so I can see exactly how writing all those others bought Marchetta to this book, at this point in time. I loved that Violette Zidane feels like she’d get along like a house on fire with Josie Alibrandi, Francesca Spinelli and especially Taylor Markham. Charlie Crombie was a little shit, but then again I thought Jonah Griggs was too – at first. I loved Layla and Jamal as fiercely as I loved Georgie and Sam from ‘Piper’s Son,’ as much as Trevanion and Beatriss from the ‘Lumatere Chronicles’ – because the good ones don’t come easy. I loved reading the family history of the LeBrac and Sarraf’s, as much as I adored when Froi once told the complicated history of his family to Arjuro, which he concluded by saying; “I'd live it again just to have crossed all of your paths.” But most of all I think I loved how ‘Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil’ can be seen as sitting alongside ‘The Piper's Son’ – examining a very different angle of a terror tragedy. And while it wasn’t the same London tragedy that took Joe away from them, part of me hopes the Mackee’s would be the sort to forgive and make peace with a family who ended up suffering just as much …

 5/5

Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil out in the US on October 11

AUDIOBOOK: 'The Piper's Son' by Melina Marchetta. Read by Michael Finney.

From the BLURB:

Two years after his favorite uncle was blown to bits in a London Tube station, Tom has hit rock bottom. He’s quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that once mattered to him, including the girl he can’t forget. Living with his single, pregnant aunt, working at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckoning with his grieving, alcoholic father, Tom’s in no shape to mend what’s broken. But what if no one else is, either?

For a review of The Piper’s Son book, looky here – this is more a review of the audiobook

I've never listened to an audiobook before. In the past I've flirted with the idea, and I even downloaded Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ when it was on sale in iTunes for something like $1.99. But I'd never actually committed to listening . . . that being said, I held out a long time before caving and buying an eReader, so I suspect my hesitation came from an allegiance to flesh-and-blood books more than anything else.

But then I decided to approach audiobooks as I originally did graphic novels – start with what I know. Once upon a time I was a little hesitant and unsure of graphic novels (or ‘comics’ as I called them then). So I started with a prequel to one of my favourite urban fantasy series, Patricia Briggs’s ‘Homecoming’ set in the Mercy Thompson world. Once I got my toes wet, I went in to my ankles and tried another prequel to my favourite book series of all time, Diana Gabaldon’s ‘Outlander’ with ‘The Exile’. I loved both of those, and now I am a complete graphic novel enthusiast. From ‘Saga’ to Raina Telgemeier, I love them. 

So I thought I'd approach adiobooks the same way, and ease in with an old beloved.

‘The Piper’s Son’ is my favourite Melina Marchetta novel. I love all her books, don’t get me wrong, and when we talk ‘ranking’ there’s infinitesimal difference in my love. But Thomas Mackee holds a special place in my heart, and I still think Georgie and Sam’s relationship is the most heartbreaking and lovely contemporary romance I've ever read. And then there’s the fact that I see a lot of my family in the Finch-Mackee mob. So, it’s ‘The Piper’s Son’ for me, by a nose.

The run time is 9 hours, read by Michael Finney. 

I downloaded from iTunes, and listened to the book while out walking my dog and on the train – which meant I was constantly laughing/crying/hiccup-crying in public while listening to it. 

This audiobook is superb. Truly, it got to the point where I was excited to go for a walk or get back on the train just to get back to the Finch-Mackee’s and this story. I already know the book by heart, but I feel like it was opened up in new ways by this reading.

I may have developed a wee crush on Michael Finney . . . as evidenced by how much I talked and gushed about him and the audiobook to a friend;

But I cannot stress enough how much Michael Finney nails this book. He’s Australian, which I was so thankful for because I could not have fathomed Tom or Georgie’s voice in an American accent. ‘The Piper’s Son’ is told in third-person, but following Tom and his aunt Georgie’s stories – so the male narrator might have been a bit of a curveball, but having Tom’s voice in Finney’s is truly brilliant. It’s all those male voices which so dominate the book – Tom and Dominic, Ned, Will, Bill, Joe and Sam (ohhhhh, Sam!). But he also does the women’s voices brilliantly– he doesn’t turn on the heavy breathing or try high-pitched mimicry (thank god! I really wasn’t sure what to expect with audiobooks!). I have since started listening to Melina’s ‘Saving Francesca’ on audiobook, read by Rebecca Macauley, and I really don’t like it. She’s made Tara sound quite gruff, and Justine overtly mousy. After having Finney’s lilting baritone, I’m struggling to get into the Macauley audiobook. 

I really knew Finney was something special during the phonecalls between Tara and Tom – when he seems to lean in a little closer, lower his voice to a rumble and really communicate the intimacy of these moments. It was wonderful to listen to. And he gets the beats down brilliantly – those pregnant pauses between Tom and Tara, Sam and Georgie. And my favourite scene of the whole book is done to perfection;

‘Am I hard work?’ she asks quietly. 

‘Yes.’ 

Silence for a moment. 

‘You could have hesitated in answering that.’ 

‘Why? I've never lied to you before,’ he says. ‘You do that all the time, you know. You ask me questions when you know the answer will piss you off. Ask me a question where the answer could be yes? Ask me if you’re worth the hard work? Ask me if in the last seven years of my life I've woken up in a cold sweat knowing I lost the most important person in my life apart from this kid I’m holding? Ask me if getting you pregnant has felt like the best thing that’s happened to me since my son was born?’

And he also bought lightness to Joe’s character, which is so at odds with the sadness of the story. But as we know, Joe was so happy. I loved that Finney bought out that joviality when recounting the ‘How to Make Gravy’ serenade moment, or read out Joe’s emails and the conversation he had with Tom about kissing Tara Finke. 

I cannot rave about this audiobook enough. I loved it, and will be listening to it again and again. I’m only upset that Michael Finney apparently hasn’t narrated any other books, because I was all ready to download any and all of his readings (yes, I developed a wee crush from his voice alone). For now I’m sticking to the Marchetta audiobooks, but only because reading ‘The Piper’s Son’ made me crave more of her words . . .  but after that I’m going to venture into the great audio unknown. I need some suggestions of books I haven’t read, but should listen to on audio. I loved anticipating all my favourite bits (and preparing to cry during the sad ones) while listening to ‘Piper’s Son’, but now I'd love to try listening to a book cold, not having read it before.

5/5

Interview with Melina Marchetta

I’m a 2013 columnist for Kill Your Darlings, writing about all things children’s and young adult. And this month, my column was Melina Marchetta-centric. Thanks to the lovely people at Penguin Books Australia, I was able to shoot off some pertinent questions . . .  my KYD column focused on the ‘Jellicoe Road’ movie adaptation, but I actually asked a few more questions that had to be cut-down for word-length. 

So, here is the Melina Marchetta Q&A in its entirety. 

And a very big thank you to the incredible Ms Marchetta for taking the time to answer my very detailed (some would say, long-winded) questions! 

Voila! 

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Q: First of all; what can you tell us about the ‘On the Jellicoe Road’ movie adaptation? I know you’d been writing the script for three years, and you’ve recently mentioned that Sue Taylor is onboard as producer and Kate Woods as director. What other little tid-bits can you reveal about the movie’s status? 

There’s probably very little I can tell you except to say that we have sent it to an actress who could possibly be Taylor Markham and that the ball doesn’t really start rolling until we cast her and Jonah Griggs. From a production side, Goalpost films are also on board. They recently had the success of The Sapphires, which was such a wonderful film. We’ve also got US producers involved so it’s definitely happening, but there’s a lot of waiting for the right people and we’re not interested in making this film without the right people. Kate Woods is coming from LA to stay with me next week so it will be a Jellicoe talk fest for the whole ten days while I show her every single film/TV or image of actors and actresses that I’ve taped or downloaded or saved.

Q: I read somewhere that you started writing a version of ‘Jellicoe’ back in 1993. It went through a few transformations, but always there was Taylor Markham (and a boy in a tree?). It’s amazing that you’ve had this story for some 19 years, and that Taylor is the character that’s been with you the longest. Is there going to be some catharsis in bringing this book to the big screen? Will you finally feel like Taylor is untethered, or do you think there’s still more to ‘Jellicoe’ and you’re not quite done with this fertile setting just yet?

I let go of Jellicoe the novel once it found its audience. That probably didn’t happen until it won the Printz in the US, but it was such a liberating feeling knowing that the novel was out in the world being read. With the script it’s different because it’s been such a long process, as film always is. I’m really proud of this film script and watching it one day on the big screen will truly be an emotional experience for so many reasons.  I say often that there will be some scenes that I won’t be able to watch. And yes, I’ll be finished with Taylor. But in saying that, I’m not finished with the setting. Cathy Randall (who originally was going to direct Jellicoe) and I are working on a TV production with Joanna Werner and Sue Taylor that is set in Jellicoe’s “fertile setting”. An isolated boarding school is the perfect place to let your imagination run wild. Whenever we pitch it, we say we want it to be West Wing for teenagers; fast smart dialogue and really complicated lives, with a lot of heart and not a lot of schmaltz.

Q: You’ve been experiencing beginnings and endings for these last few years. This year, of course, your ‘Lumatere Chronicles’ trilogy came to a close with the wonderful ‘Quintana of Charyn’, and three years ago you picked up Taylor Markham’s story again and started adapting the book, which was first published in 2006. I’m curious if you did any sort of writerly ritual to say goodbye to the world of Skuldenore (for the time being?) and if your characters always stay with you and talk to you, long after their books have hit the shelves?

The last thing I ever do with one of my novels is I listen to it.  The Froi and Quintana audio versions read by Grant Cartwright and produced by Bolinda Audio have been great for that. It’s almost as if I need someone to read my story back to me. I never ever think my characters are real people, but I do miss them.  I miss them being in my head when I wake up at 3am, and trust me, those Lumaterans and Charynites were such big personalities to have in my head.  I think the hardest characters to let go of, though, were the Finch-Mackees from The Piper’s Son.  I still miss their dark humour and their fierceness. And for the record, I’d be wrong to say I’m finished with characters. Tom Mackee made a fool of me in that way and so did Froi.  The only characters I won’t write about ever again are the Alibrandi lot and that has much to do with the fact that my grandmothers were both alive when I was writing Nonna Katia and I don’t want her getting any older.

Q: There’s actually quite a correlation between ‘On the Jellicoe Road’ and the ‘Lumatere Chronicles’. Your fantasy series is about people who are exiled from their homeland. While the contemporary ‘Jellicoe’ is about a displacement of a different kind, in Taylor Markham whose trying to piece together the puzzle of her past to understand who she is. Also interesting that ‘Jellicoe’ is based in a rural boarding school – filled with children who are separated from their homes and families. And they’re both, in a way, about what happens after tragedy – how people cope in its wake. Did you find that writing the ‘Lumatere Chronicles’ alongside the ‘Jellicoe’ script helped inform both works, that one had influence over the other and vice-versa? 

No, although I do love your connections. For me, Finnikin of the Rock came after Jellicoe because of the world building of Jellicoe and the descriptive language and the sometimes-surreal nature of that world.  I don’t think I could have jumped from the style of Francesca to the fantasy novels.  I actually think that The Lumatere Chronicles are more related to Looking For Alibrandi. All those novels are about displacement and Diasporas and the loss of language within generations of family and they’re about homeland and identity.

Q: I was lucky enough to attend your Melbourne Writers Festival event in August, held in the ACMI building and jam-packed with school kids. There was a great atmosphere from the audience that day, and many questions were asked about the ‘Jellicoe’ movie adaptation. I got the sense that all your young fans are very patient for the movie to come along, and very trusting in your vision for the adaptation. Do you feel that acceptance/eagerness from your fans? What has been the response from your fanbase (both here, and in America) where the ‘Jellicoe’ movie is concerned? 

The thing I love about working with Sue Taylor is how respectful she is of the readers’ passion for this novel, and she knows that it will be the readership that generates the interest for this project. It will be the readers who will get those who haven’t read Jellicoe to come along and watch the film.  What will be unavoidable is disappointing readers who have a set idea of what Taylor and Jonah and everyone look like.  What I discovered from Alibrandi was that it didn’t matter what I imagined everyone looking like.  It mattered that we cast the right actors and in Alibrandi, we certainly did. Nothing is certain in the casting of this film except that Chaz Santangelo who is Italian and indigenous will be played by an indigenous actor. And that I really want the cast to reflect the diversity of the novel, especially the present day kids in the story.  I’ll say it over and over again; the lack of cultural diversity in Australian TV shows and films is extremely weak. It’s what makes me so proud of Alibrandi and it’s what I’m loving so much about Redfern Now.

'Quintana of Charyn' Lumatere Chronicles #3 by Melina Marchetta

 Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

There's a babe in my belly that whispers the valley, Froi.
I follow the whispers and come to the road...

Separated from the girl he loves and has sworn to protect, Froi must travel through Charyn to search for Quintana, the mother of Charyn's unborn king, and protect her against those who will do anything to gain power. But what happens when loyalty to family and country conflict? When the forces marshalled in Charyn's war gather and threaten to involve the whole of the land, including Lumatere, only Froi can set things right, with the help of those he loves.

‘Quintana of Charyn’ is the much-anticipated third and final novel in Melina Marchetta’s ‘Lumatere Chronicles.’

I didn’t want to read this book, because I didn’t want to have it all come to an end. Melina Marchetta has taken readers on an epic and perilous journey that began with the assassination of a royal family, a Kingdom’s curse and ten years of exile that separated families, and destroyed lives. She has written tangled webs and fractured hearts, and the types of classic, grandiose love stories that can only be found in fantasy. I've loved every page of ‘The Lumatere Chronicles’, and though I was sad to read its end with ‘Quintana of Charyn’, I found there was a lot to love in this goodbye. But, then again, maybe I shouldn’t look at this as ‘the end’. A large focus of ‘Quintana’ is hope; hope and family and how those two are sometimes irrevocably linked. So maybe it’s more accurate to say that ‘Quintana’ isn’t about the destination, but the journey. You have to go there to come back, so to speak. Through the uncertainty of ‘Finnikin’ and the darkness of ‘Froi’, you had to go there to get to this point. To this book that’s brimming with hope and family – maybe it’s more like a homecoming than an ending?

‘Quintana of Charyn’ picks up where ‘Froi of the Exiles’ left off, give or take a few weeks during Froi’s recovery. When we revisit him, Froi is being tended to by his uncle Arjuro, but is restless and heartsick for Quintana, not knowing her whereabouts but knowing there will be a price on her head as King-killer and last Charyn royal. Not to mention, she carries their babe. So once Arjuro relents, Froi intends to go searching for his Quintana with his parents, Gargarin and Lirah, in tow.

Meanwhile, Isaboe and Finnikin are fighting – nobody has heard from Froi in weeks and rumours are swirling that his allegiance has shifted. Finnikin wonders if there is more to Isaboe’s concern over Froi’s whereabouts, and it becomes abundantly clear that he is still not quite resigned to his role as Consort. Though Isaboe is big with a baby on the way, Finnikin decides to leave their home and go travelling with his father, Trevanion and trusted soldier Perri, the three men still on the hunt of vengeance for Isaboe’s slain family.

Trouble is brewing in the valley since a plague killed some of the Charynite women, including Lumatere leader, Lucian’s, wife. Food is scarce for those seeking refuge, but Isaboe will not bring war to her valley by opening her home to those she has a dark past with. And while Lucian grieves for his deceased wife, Phaedra of Alonso is in fact hiding in a cave with other Charynite women; Cora, Florenza, Jorja and Ginny. These five women could not be more different, but it’s keeping someone secret that binds them together and keeps them hidden.

And down in the same valley, a savage girl wanders.

‘Quintana of Charyn’ begins with many tangled webs and seemingly disconnected stories, spread across the Skuldenore land. But as the book progresses, stories overlap . . . connections are made and fate plays a deft hand in these character’s lives and paths. And along with ‘family’ and ‘hope’, I do think that fate plays a big part in this book – and perhaps has been playing its part since ‘Finnikin of the Rock’, as storylines transpire and show roots reaching back to that first book. I think Froi summarizes this beautifully, in one of my favourite scenes between him and Arjuro. ‘The Lumatere Chronicles’ has been filled with characters transforming themselves and rising above their circumstances – Evanjalin to Queen Isaboe, and Froi from street urchin to Queen’s trusted assassin being the biggest. With that in mind, it was humbling and touching to read Froi’s thoughts on the hard life he’s had, and that he wouldn’t change any of it;

Froi saw the rage in Arjuro’s eyes, his clenched fists.
‘If I could find the men who did those things to you as a child I would tear them limb from limb.’
Froi embraced him.
‘One day,’ Froi said, clearing his voice of emotion, ‘I’ll introduce you to my queen and my king and my captain; and Lord August and Lady Abian, who have given me a home; and the Priestking and Perri and Tesadora and my friend Lucian; and then you’ll understand that I would never have met them if you hadn’t journeyed to Sarnak all those years ago, Arjuro. And if the gods were to give me a choice between living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the slightest chance of crossing their path, then I'd pick the wretched life over and over again.’
He kissed Arjuro’s brow. Finnikin called it a blessing between two male blood kin. It always had made Froi ache seeing it between Finnikin and Trevanion.
‘I'd live it again just to have crossed all of your paths. Keep safe, Arjuro. Keep safe so I can bring your brother home to you.’

One of my favourite aspects of this book is the poisoned history between Queen Isaboe and Princess Quintana. Quintana and Isaboe actually reminded me a little of Elizabeth ‘The Virgin Queen’ and Mary ‘Queen of Scots’ for the very complicated royal rivalry where one life hangs in the balance of another, and what’s in each of their bellies could change the fate of Skuldenore forever. Throughout this book there’s this tension pulling Isaboe and Quintana tighter and tighter, like an invisible rubber band that’s about to snap and send them colliding into one another. I just loved that so much power and fate is bundled up in the wombs of these two very different, but very powerful women. They’re also interesting for the people they have inadvertently come to share between them – like Froi, who is battling the love he has for his Queen, with the need he has for Quintana. 

Speaking of the women of this book; they’re simply wonderful. I hate to draw comparisons between any of the ‘Lumatere Chronicles’ books and Melina’s previous contemporary work, because they’re very different beasts, but the Charynite women in the cave had powerful echoes of ‘Saving Francesca’ for me. It was the fact that these women are thrown together for reasons beyond their control, and to begin with they can barely conceal their disgust at having to cohabitate … but then something changes, something bigger and more important draws them together and by the end it seems they can’t imagine their lives without one other. They would die for each other. Substitute the cave for St Sebastian's and you’ll know where I got that connection from, and why I loved reading about the forming bond between these women.

Many of you will no doubt remember that ‘Froi of the Exiles’ left fans reeling with many cliffhangers and revelations. Well, let me assure you that Marchetta pays tribute to all those loose-ends and pitfalls in a most satisfying way. This book is really about coming full-circle; and while some resolutions are quieter than others (like the subtle mentions Beatriss makes to Trevanion teaching his daughter, Vestie, to swim) others are far more complex – like Lucian and Phaedra’s rather rocky relationship, or Tesadora and Perri’s secretive one. The big players are the focus of this book – Froi, Quintana, Finnikin and Isaboe – but it’s a mainstay of all Melina Marchetta’s stories that she writes as interesting and complicated secondary characters as she does protagonists, and that’s again true of ‘Quintana of Charyn’.

And as for whether or not ‘Quintana of Charyn’ is a most satisfying conclusion to the epic ‘Lumatere Chronicles’? Of course it is. I can’t wait until many people have read this book, and there’s wide-open discussion about how beautifully tricky and gut-wrenching a certain plot point is towards the end. It’s a scene that shows Queen Isaboe’s mettle, and her compassion – and another one of those moments that seems to ring with destiny. So beautiful is this scene, this moment between two Queens, it has the makings of a legend – like a tale that will be passed down from generation to generation.

‘Quintana of Charyn’ is indeed the end of the epic ‘Lumatere Chronicles’ (though I will have my fingers crossed for more Celie short stories). This has not been an easy trilogy, far from it – Marchetta wrote of a royal murder, heartbreaking curse, separated families, displacement and sad destinies. But this has also been a series with one of the most beautiful father/son relationships explored, between Trevanion and Finnikin. It has been a series based around strong women who were once broken, but never defeated. Marchetta wrote a foul street urchin in one book, and then built him up to admired assassin and kingdom saviour in another. She wrote of families being torn apart, only to make their finding one another that much sweeter. For three books now she has written a fine balance between darkness and light, hope and despair. Yes, you had to go there to get to this point, to this book . . . this book which takes us full-circle, to bring us home again. It’s not the destination; it’s the journey – and what a wonderful journey it has been.

5/5