'Summer Skin' by Kirsty Eagar

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Jess Gordon is out for revenge. Last year the jocks from Knights College tried to shame her best friend. This year she and a hand-picked college girl gang are going to get even.

The lesson: don't mess with Unity girls.

The target: Blondie, a typical Knights stud, arrogant, cold . . . and smart enough to keep up with Jess.

A neo-riot grrl with a penchant for fanning the flames meets a rugby-playing sexist pig - sworn enemies or two people who happen to find each other when they're at their most vulnerable?

It's all Girl meets Boy, Girl steals from Boy, seduces Boy, ties Boy to a chair and burns Boy's stuff. Just your typical love story.

‘Summer Skin’ is the new young adult novel from Australian author, Kirsty Eagar.

Fair warning: when I love something I like to talk about it and examine it from all angles. I really loved ‘Summer Skin’, so prepare for a long, loving review …

First I’m trying to think of how to describe this book and what happens, plot-wise, when I don’t actually want to give too much away. Also that there’s isn’t really much to give away that the blurb doesn’t already beautifully summarise, like with this pithy one-liner that I think is just pure fucking poetry: a neo-riot grrl with a penchant for fanning the flames meets a rugby-playing sexist pig. Or how about feminist commentator Clementine Ford’s endorsement, that explains ‘Summer Skin’ is: a keen look at modern day intimacy in a hook-up culture. You already know all you need to entice you to pick up this smart, sexy YA read.

So instead I want to tell you about ‘Summer Skin’ by going back to 1975 – the year Judy Blume’s ‘Forever’ was first published. I love this page about ‘Forever’ on Blume’s website, where she explains the kernel of an idea for what would become, without a doubt, one of the most important books in young adult history: My daughter Randy asked for a story about two nice kids who have sex without either of them having to die. She had read several novels about teenagers in love. If they had sex the girl was always punished—an unplanned pregnancy, a hasty trip to a relative in another state, a grisly abortion (illegal in the U.S. until the 1970's), sometimes even death. Lies. Secrets. At least one life ruined. Girls in these books had no sexual feelings and boys had no feelings other than sexual. Neither took responsibility for their actions. I wanted to present another kind of story—one in which two seniors in high school fall in love, decide together to have sex, and act responsibly.

Pretty radical notion, huh? Writing about two teenagers who have sex and don’t die. But that was radical back in 1975, when young adult literature (and especially American YA) had to have moralistic undertones – and when it came to sex that was meant to be abstinence is best.

Fast forward to 2016 and Kirsty Eagar’s ‘Summer Skin’ is adding new layers and nuances to a discussion Blume started 41 years ago. In this book, Eagar is talking about sex and sexuality, pleasure and politics in a way that’s taking Aussie YA literature into a new and daring stratosphere, and it’s absolutely worth celebrating.

‘Summer Skin’ runs quite the sexual gamut – exploring everything from young women who are sexually degraded by men, to sex being used as weapon or revenge, and the pressure women feel to have sex though it’s often divorced from feeling and pleasure … there’s even discussions in here about how pornography has impacted the way in which young people view sex today – as more performance than pleasure, and the impact of its dangerous unrealism;

If high school was all about whether or not you’d give it up, uni seemed to be about nothing but giving it up. Suddenly, inexplicably, the rules changed, and – bam – you were Adult-with-a-capital-A. There was no means to the end, there was just the end, just sex, and you pretended to keep up. Sometimes Jess had felt it, the flaring of her own appetite, but she’d rarely let herself go. Too busy performing.

This book is also built on discussions and dichotomies of sexism and feminism – not running just as an undercurrent, but an in-your-face refreshing statement not to be messed with or overlooked. Indeed, the book is about Unity Girls versus Knights Boys on college campus – and through them these discussions are made manifest. The Knights Boys in particular are beautifully portrayed in their truth and – it must be said – Neanderthal ways. And if you don’t believe me, know that ‘Summer Skin’ made me think all the way back to 2012 and a particularly disturbing story about a drinking scandal, near-death of a teenage girl and unearthed misogyny at St John's College at the University of Sydney. These boys Eagar is writing about, and the society they belong to, absolutely exist and she’s chilling in her scarily accurate depictions.

There’s also a perverse beauty to Eagar exploring these topics, because she is such a marvellous author for detail. I found myself marking so many pages in this book, just because her descriptions took my breath away for their vividness;  

… widening his stance as if experiencing a sudden and significant surge in ball size, speaking in the drawl used by guys who are fluent in Brah.
 

I also want to celebrate this book for its grey-areas and sexiness – because ‘Summer Skin’ is both sensuous and subversive, scathing and scintillating. And this, in itself, is making a statement in YA as big as Blume’s ‘Forever’ did – as Eagar’s protagonist Jess enters into something steamy with her antithesis, Knights Boy, rugby player, Blondie Brah – Mitch. And their relationship is hot – something which is still not as prevalent as it should be in YA. Honest depictions of sexual desire and pleasure (particularly emphasis on female pleasure and self-pleasure) – it’s still a radical thing to find in YA.

Blondie held the can there, just out from her breast, until she looked at him. And when she did, his eyes were so intense that she released his wrist. She gasped when he pressed the can to her nipples, first one and then the other, but then he replaced it with his mouth, sucking each nipple in turn, his hands supporting her, and Jess closed her eyes, her breath catching. She arched her back.
 

As someone who reads a lot of romance, I can tell you that ‘Summer Skin’ is up there with the best. But I do want to say that I still consider this book to be young adult – even for its college campus setting and abundant sex. I have no problems with people bandying the label ‘New Adult’ around – but I will say that I absolutely believe teenagers (boys and girls alike) should find their way to ‘Summer Skin’ and embrace its many messages, particularly around sex-positivity and politics.

Kirsty Eagar has long been one of Australia’s most daring and rebellious YA writers, dating back to her powerful debut ‘Raw Blue’. ‘Summer Skin’ is more brilliance and fearlessness from this Aussie favourite, and I absolutely applaud Eagar for elevating such conversations around modern romance in our young adult literature.  

5/5 

The Inky Awards 2012 Shortlist Announced

★

Below are the details of the Inky Awards 2012 Shortlist! I had so much fun being an Inky judge; I got to meet some wonderful bibliophiles and had the opportunity to read and champion some fantastic books!

I owe a big thanks to the State Library, Centre for Youth Literature and Inside a Dog for inviting me to judge (and calling me an 'industry expert' - watch my ego inflate!)

Congratulations to all those who made both the long and short list (it was seriously tough competition), I hope that everyone who is eligible votes, and that everyone attends the awards on October 23 (I'll be there! With bells on!)

★

The Inky Awards are Australia’s teen-choice awards as voted for online by the readers of insideadog.com.au. It recognises home grown writing talent with the Gold Inky, and titles from across the ocean with the Silver Inky.

The judging panel consisted of four teenagers from around Australia; author and 2011 Gold Inky Award winner James Moloney; and industry expert Danielle Binks. Together they whittled down the 2012 Inky Awards Longlist to five Australian titles (Gold Inky), and five international titles (Silver Inky), for the 2012 Inky Awards Shortlist.

The Inky Awards – Vote Now!

Voting is now open on insideadog.com.au/vote.

Include your username while voting and you will go in to the draw to win the entire shortlisted books!

*If you’re not registered you can register at insideadog.com.au.

Voting is open to ages 12-20.

Voting closes on the 14 October 2012.

Winners will be announced at The Inky Awards event on the 23rd of October. Find out more about the event on the State Library of Victoria’s What’s On page.

Follow the Inky Awards experience via -
Twitter: @insideadog #Inkys Facebook: Inside A Dog

Gold Inky (Australian books)
★ Shift by Em Bailey
★ Night Beach by Kirsty Eagar
★ Act of Faith by Kelly Gardiner
★ Queen of the Night by Leanne Hall
★ The Reluctant Hallelujah by Gabrielle Williams

Silver Inky (International books)
★ BZRK by Michael Grant
★ The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
★ Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
★ A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
★ Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Review of Australian Fiction Volume 3 Issue 4 - Melina Marchetta and Kirsty Eagar

This is the fourth issue of Volume Three of the Review of Australian Fiction. It contains a new story by Melina Marchetta, Ferragost, a 15,000 word Lady Celie adventure, and a story Kirsty Eagar, Molasses.

‘Review of Australian Fiction’ has been a wonderful short story enterprise that pairs an established writer with an ‘emerging writer’ every issue. The latest offering, Volume 3 Issue 4, has Melina Marchetta headlining along with the emerging writer she hand-picked to share her issue, Kirsty Eagar. As the Editorial for the issue mentions, when Ms Marchetta was first approached to contribute to the Review, Eagar was an up-and-coming author. But that has all changed since the 2009 release of her debut novel ‘Raw Blue’, which went on to win the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and is one of the few Aussie YA books to make the prestigious NPR ‘Best-Ever Teen Novels?’ poll (quite a feat, considering ‘Raw Blue’ has never been released in the US!). And so this particular issue of the ‘Review of Australian Fiction’ is a veritable Aussie YA boon – pairing two of our most beloved and respected young adult authors and offering up two delicious slices of short story from both.

Melina Marchetta’s ‘Ferragost’ is short story 2.5 in her ‘Lumatere Chronicles’ epic YA fantasy series. The short story takes place in the same world as ‘Lumatere Chronicles’, but is a stand-alone story with Lady Celie of the Lumateran Flatlands – the daughter of Lord August and Lady Abian, and best friend to the Queen of Lumatere.

‘Ferragost’ opens with the discovery of Borealis Luby’s dead body. He is found amid jagged rocks, having seemingly flung himself from the high window of his room in Ferragost Castle. But Lady Celie of the Lumateran Flatlands is not convinced that his death is as simple as suicide, not with his head bashed in and Ferragost maids whispering of devious deeds being carried out in the name of the Queen . . . .

Celie turns to Castellan of Ferragost Castle, Mr Banyon, for help in her suspicions. But Banyon has his own investigation underway, one that places a great deal of suspicion (correctly) on Lady Celie being a spy sent by her Queen Isaboe. Meanwhile, Celie also seeks help in her private investigations from Ferragost native, Argus Laraunt who is a walking mystery unto himself;

‘Do you believe in curses and damnation, lady Celie?’ Argus Laraunt asked, and she saw fear in his eyes.
Celie shuddered. ‘Oh Mr Laraunt, I’m a Lumateran. My people were torn apart for ten years because of curses and damnation. I’m not the one to ask such a question of.’

‘Ferragost’ is a wonderful, twisting mystery from Melina Marchetta. This short story has a feel of Umberto Eco to it; with a pervading sense of menace stalking Celie in the darkened halls of Ferragost Castle, while whispers of death hint at a delicious combination of politics and horror. The events in ‘Ferragost’ are happening at the same time as the events in ‘Quintana’, so we’ll understand the larger role Celie plays when ‘Quintana of Charyn’ is released next month. I can’t wait to read more of Celie, for she proves herself to be quite a conundrum and interesting character – with a sickly, timid appearance belying steely resolve, quick thinking and even more admirable traits readers can see are, partly, influences of the wonderful Queen Isaboe.

I also loved reading about Celie and ‘Keeper of Ferragost’, Mr Banyon. By now followers of her work know that Ms Marchetta favours the unexpected in her characters’ romances, and that’s especially true of Celie and Banyon. I feel like we have only just scratched the surface of them in ‘Ferragost’, and I can’t wait to read more in the highly-anticipated ‘Quintana of Charyn’.

Kirsty Eagar’s ‘Molasses’ is set just outside of Rockhampton, Queensland and concentrates on four friends whose lives, already rocked by one seeming miracle, are set to change yet again . . .

The story focuses on Amelia Coady, who is bearing witness to the evolving relationship between her brother, Chris, and her best friend Megan. Feeling like a bystander in their changing dynamic, Amelia reminisces about the seismic shifts that started happening long before Chris started casting long looks at Megan from the back of the school bus . . .

Amelia remembers a few years back, when Chris was bed-ridden with Guillain–Barré syndrome, ascending paralysis in his legs leaving him dependent on their needlessly cruel mother, Jessie. She and Chris started devising plans and promises to one day escape their home, where Jessie and their step-father Ray are in a constant battle of wills over a safe cemented into the shed floor . . . but their escape depends on Chris getting better, by some miracle. But it’s not until Chris’s best friend, Trevor, and his cousin, Megan, enter into their orbits that real change begins.

‘Molasses’ is a wonderful ode to small country towns, and the suffocating lives being lived within them. Eagar’s pitch-perfect descriptions had echoes of Honey Brown for me, for her precise and heartbreakingly lovely setting;

Town. It looked better in the dark, or when viewed from a distance. From Jarmoya at night, it was a glow in the belly of the southern sky. A calling. Street lights, night clubs and fights. By day, the town was sun-slapped and sweaty, lying like a dying pet at the foot of the Berserker Range; snaked by an old brown river, fed by the Bruce Highway, and striped by the Tropic of Capricorn. It was a place where people crossed the road slowly, the bitumen sucking at their thongs. A beef town with sale yards and abattoirs, two bridges – the ‘old’ bridge and the ‘new’ bridge – and a bigger population of both people and bull statues than those down south realised.

The heart of this short story is the foursome of Amelia, Chris, Megan and Trevor – all seventeen and meaning more to each other with each passing day they spend stuck in this town together. There’s something magic in this friendship, and I loved that Eagar didn’t feel the need to drag out or strip down their barest hint of enchantment – it may even just come down to something as intangible as belief, but it’s beautiful for being understated.

Volume 3 Issue 4 ‘Review of Australian Fiction’ is a little Aussie YA gem – fans of both Melina Marchetta and Kirsty Eagar will know what a prize these two short stories are, from two of our most beloved young adult authors. But I also hope that those unfamiliar with Marchetta and Eagar (perhaps even unfamiliar with the entire glorious underbelly of Aussie YA?) will read these stories and be prompted to delve deeper.

5/5

Kirsty Eagar interview

•

I was very lucky this year, to receive an advanced copy of Kirsty Eagar's highly-anticipated new young adult novel, 'Night Beach'. 

Ms Eagar is a favorite Aussie author of mine, for a lot of reasons. Her debut novel 'Raw Blue' was exquisite; a painful but vital book about one girl's battle with the trauma of her past. Her second novel, 'Saltwater Vampires' was an Aussie-Gothic extravaganza. But I also adore Ms Eagar because I was lucky enough to interview her in 2010. She is so wonderful, funny and kind - and that just makes her writing success all the sweeter! 

I truly, truly believe that Kirsty Eagar is one of the most important voices in Australian YA at the moment, so I was over-the-moon when an early copy of 'Night Beach' came my way. And I've got to say - Kirsty Eagar meets, and exceeds, fan expectations with her third book. It is incredible: a goosebump-inducing tale of obsession and mystery, at once a coming-of-age tale and a mesmerizing Gothic-horror story. 'Night Beach' is definitely a favourite book of 2012 for me, and it should be on everyone's must-read list!

I was so thrilled when Kirsty agreed to do another Q&A with me. Just a little FYI, you'll find that in this interview I have included images of many different artworks by a collection of Australian and international artists - some of these works are intrinsic to the 'Night Beach' story, and are mentioned by the book's protagonist, Abbie. Other images included in this post are just ones that I thought reflected the story (like Jacob Sutton's incredible 'Underwater Girl' collection'!)   

Without further ado, I give you my interview with the wonderful and talented, Kirsty Eagar! 

•

 Q: How long did it take you to write ‘Night Beach’, from first idea to final manuscript?

That's going to require some thinking! I had the original idea and started writing it just after Raw Blue was accepted for publication, so around September 2008. The first 15,000 words came very quickly (and they never changed much). But then other things got in the way - edits for Raw Blue, my second child, the experience of being published for the first time, edits for Saltwater Vampires ... I didn't get a chance to work on Night Beach again until December 2010, and it was only the looming deadline that got me back into it. I finished the first draft in February 2011, and I was pretty wrecked by the end of it. I didn't work on it again until midway through 2011 when I did the structural edit. Life got in the way again after that, so the final edits were completed in February and March this year. I guess, looking back on it all, that book came about in three or four short, intense periods of writing, with long waits in between.
 

Q: Are you a plotter or a ‘pantser’? – That is, do you meticulously plot your novel before writing, or do you ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ and let the story evolve naturally?

Every time I finish something I tell myself that next time I’m going to plot it all out before I start. But it never works like that. Eventually, I just give up and start writing, and the final outcome never has much overlap with my original plotting attempts. In my case, I sometimes think that the urge to control it all stems from fear – fear that I’m not going to be able to do it again, because I’m never really sure how I did it last time. Plotting works best for me when I do it on the hop: say, by having a rough idea of where the next three scenes might take me, and something to aim for further in the distance.
 

 

Q: Where do story ideas generally start for you? Do you first think of the character, theme, ending? Or is it just a free-fall?

That’s such a great question. For me, the main character always arrives at the beginning of the process, but the idea itself is pretty vague. It’s more like a number of things I want to explore that I know are somehow going to be woven together in a story.

Q: ‘Night Beach’ references many famous and beautiful pieces of artwork. Abbie cites a great mix of Aussie artists (like Brett Whiteley), and classics (such as René Magritte’s mind-bending works). Were all the paintings and artists mentioned your personal favourites, or did you start researching when you decided that Abbie was influenced by these masters?

All of the paintings mentioned in Night Beach are works that I love, but that said Abbie’s tastes are slightly different to mine. I went overboard in the early drafts and there were a lot more references. Luckily my editor, Amy Thomas, reined that in and got me to cull it back to only the works that were significant in terms of where the story was going.

Q: Something I loved about ‘Night Beach’ was learning about artists and artwork that I had never seen before. I had a lot of fun reading Abbie reference a painting, and then looking it up and getting new insight into her emotions. . .  in particular, her mention of Giorgio De Chirico’s ‘Mystery and Melancholy of a Street’, gave me chills to look at that menacing shadow around the corner. And Dorothea Tanning’s ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ is so beautifully strange, and no wonder Abbie feels like it reflects current circumstances. How hard was it to find pieces of artwork that resonated with scenes, and complemented Abbie’s mindset and the story?

It was actually a pretty organic process. ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ was always going to be there because it directly inspired that part of the story (the hair, the door). I first came across that painting when I was seventeen and I felt like it was the key to a secret – all I had to do was find the secret! Overall, what helped narrow things down was that I was picking paintings as much for the ideas behind them as the art itself. So the Surrealists had to be represented (in view of their focus on dreams and the unconscious), and the Romantics did too (the power of nature, Gothicism, the supernatural, the artist’s individual journey).
 

Q: ‘Night Beach’ is definitely scary. You have readers literally jumping at shadows . . . Have you always been a fan of horror/spooky stories? And how do you know something is scary enough when you’re writing – do you test scenes out on certain, trusting readers and gauge their scare-factor? Or do you aim to scare yourself?

You know what’s funny? Before now, I had never given this any thought. I’ve been surprised that people find Night Beach so scary. I definitely enjoy spooky stories, but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable reading them – I always lie awake afterwards. And I’m the biggest wuss when it comes to suspense in movies. I cover my eyes AND block my ears, and (if I’m in a movie theatre) I usually embarrass my husband by repeatedly asking in a loud voice: ‘Is it over yet?’

It didn’t occur to me to test anything, but I did scare myself. The first draft of Night Beach was written at night, usually between 9pm and 2am. Normally I’d be writing in a sleep-deprived trance, but there were a couple of scenes that bumped me out of it. I was checking behind me, feeling like the air had suddenly become very cold.

Q: [SPOILER question]. There’s a bit of Djinn (jinn/genie) mythology in ‘Night Beach’ that really harks back to the ancient, even Qur'an, origin of those ‘demons’. How did you settle on Jinn as your supernatural creature in ‘Night Beach’ – and how was it different writing about them (when they have Islamic mythology origins) versus the more commonly known supernatural villains in ‘Saltwater Vampires’?

Danielle, you put so much thought into your questions – thank you! I became interested in Jinn mythology when I decided I wanted to go on a surf trip to the Maldives. But in writing about it, I was definitely conscious that it’s a mythology based in a culture that’s quite different to mine. So I left things open to interpretation as much as possible. It’s up to the reader how much they attribute to the workings of a Jinn, and how much they attribute to the workings of Abbie’s subconscious.  

Q: The title ‘Night Beach’ is a very apt one. There is something about a beach at night that is so changeable and fearsome. In the moonlight it can be beautiful, but crashing waves can sound deafening and menacing in the pitch black. I feel like you captured this beautifully in ‘Saltwater Vampires’, when the beach became a Gothic setting. . .  and you do it again in ‘Night Beach’. How much time did you spend wandering beaches at night? And was that a fun/frightening way to get the creative juices flowing?

A lot is the short answer, but it’s something I’ve always done. While I was writing Night Beach we were in a place that was on the beach. I could see and hear the waves from my desk. I’d walk out and take a look at it whenever I felt like it. And I often surf until after dark (especially in summer when it’s crowded). The other thing is, when I was growing up, my grandmother had a house right on the beach. There was no back fence, just sand. You’d be lying in bed in the sleep-out and you could hear the waves as though they were just outside the window. I feel more at home there at night because there’s nobody else getting in your way. It’s usually just you and it.

Q: Something else really interesting in ‘Night Beach’ is the focus on human connection, particularly between Abbie and Kane. . .  because it is so one-sided, and Abbie has invested so much into her feelings for him (feelings Kane doesn’t necessarily deserve). What was your inspiration for writing about this sort of ‘romantic’ relationship?

I’m not sure why I chose to write about it. I know that even though it’s not always healthy, there’s something addictive about the intensity of obsession. You feel more alive. And I think in that sense, Abbie is using Kane (which might seem like an odd thing to say in view of that one-sidedness you’ve mentioned).

Q: Your first novel, ‘Raw Blue', won the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Young Adult Fiction. That novel, about a girl called Carly; a lone surfer with a suffocating secret, really resonated with readers and has quickly become an Australian YA favourite, while also gaining popularity overseas. It was a very intense novel, and Carly’s journey was a difficult one. . .  Even though the novel came out in 2009, do you still find yourself thinking about Carly? Is it hard to let a character like that just go, even though the book is out and, for all intents and purposes, ‘done’?

Yes, definitely. I still think about a lot of the characters from that book, and I miss them. When it was published I went through a form of grief - that was it, I was cut off from them. But every now and then I get a nice email from someone that makes me feel like they live on.

Q: What was the last great book you read?

 The Good Daughter by Honey Brown. She leaves me breathless.

Q: Favourite authors of all time?

Tove Jansson, James Lee Burke, S.E. Hinton, Cormac McCarthy, Harper Lee, and I’m going to say Shirley Conran, too, because I read Lace at eleven and that goldfish scene has never left me.

Q: What are you working on right now, and when can we expect it to hit shelves?

At the moment I’m working on what could only be described as a big mess. It’s got a long way to go before it gets anywhere near a shelf! 

'Night Beach' by Kirsty Eagar

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Imagine there is someone you like so much that just thinking about them leaves you desperate and reckless. You crave them in a way that's not rational, not right, and you're becoming somebody you don't recognise, and certainly don't respect, but you don't even care.

And this person you like is unattainable. Except for one thing . . .

He lives downstairs.

Abbie has three obsessions. Art. The ocean. And Kane.

But since Kane's been back, he's changed. There's a darkness shadowing him that only Abbie can see. And it wants her in its world.

A gothic story about the very dark things that feed the creative process.

Abbie feels abandoned in her own hometown. Her older sister, Anna, has moved away for University, leaving Abbie stranded with her distant mother and meticulous stepfather. Abbie’s real father is starting a new family with his pregnant girlfriend, wiping the slate clean, or so it seems. Abbie has also distanced herself from school friends, and been abandoned by her best friend Petey in favour of her new boyfriend, Jake.

But all of these cut ties and drifting friendships are nothing compared to losing her step-cousin, Kane. After a confusing Christmas encounter, Kane and his friends went for a surf photo shoot overseas and absence has certainly made Abbie’s heart grow fonder. For weeks she has been thinking and obsessing about Kane, missing him and remembering their ‘almost’ moment.

Abbie fills the time between waiting for school and Kane by thinking about her all-important final art project, and surfing. She duck-dives and rips through the waves, paddles out every day until she’s numb with cold. Accompanying her are new friends and local art/surfer boys Max and Oliver Wood (aka, ‘Ollie Wood’, aka ‘Hollywood’). And for a little extra money she babysits a little girl called Joey, a budding young artist with a curious imaginary friend named Pinty.

And then Kane comes home.

Abbie is still under his spell, and elated by the news that he has recently dumped his girlfriend. Kane’s time away, surfing with friends around remote islands, has improved his technique and turned him into an even more ruthless surfer. Abbie admires his bravado on the waves, the way his powerful body cuts through the surf . . .  but something has changed about Kane. His first day back in town and he picks a fight with the meanest old boy there is, Greg Hill, sparking a nasty territory war amongst the local surfers.

But that’s not the only thing that has changed about him. He’s hot to the touch with gouges on his skin. His shadow is not right, and a cryptic message in the back of his notebook has Abbie looking over her shoulder.

Something happened on those islands, and Kane has come back changed. While Abbie tries to figure out what’s wrong with him, her artwork takes on an intensity that scares even her.  The only other person who seems to realize Abbie’s concerns is her babysitting charge, Joey. A little girl whose invisible friend, Pinty, understands about the black thing following Kane, and knows where Abbie must go. . .

There is an old maritime superstition that says if the rim of a glass rings, there are shipwrecks ahead. In the weeks after Kane’s return, the peal of vibrating glass can be heard constantly, warning of the wreckage. . .

‘Night Beach’ is the much-anticipated new YA novel from Kirsty Eagar, winner of the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for her debut, ‘Raw Blue’.

In her first novel, Kirsty Eagar introduced readers to an angry and scarred young woman named Carly who found catharsis in surfing, but whose grief and anger could not be washed away, no matter how much she tried to purge them. In her follow-up novel, ‘Saltwater Vampires’, Eagar turned Australia’s sun, sand and surf into a spine-tingling Gothic setting for a vampire horror story. The best way I can describe her third novel, ‘Night Beach’ is as a glorious blend of these first two books – the emotional complexities of ‘Raw Blue’, examining relationships and wanting, combined with the sinister surf setting of ‘Saltwater Vampires’, with a supernatural malevolence plaguing our heroine.

Our protagonist in ‘Night Beach’ is Abbie, a talented young artist who feels cast adrift in her life. Her older sister, Anna, is arguably the only real family Abbie has left – and even she has abandoned her to study in Canberra. Abbie is left with her reserved mother and Brian, dull-as-dishwater step-father. Abbie’s real father lives interstate, with his pregnant girlfriend, busy creating a new family. Abbie has so many disconnections in her life – even her best friend has abandoned her for the holidays, choosing to vacation with her all-important boyfriend. But the biggest loss in Abbie’s young life has been the recent death of her grandfather – a cranky old bugger who enjoyed morning swims in the ocean and gifted Abbie with numerous and curious treasures.

It is little wonder then that Abbie has a particular obsession with her step-cousin, Kane, who lives with Abbie and her family in a basement for rent. A not-quite pro surfer, Kane is the archetypal surf boy – concerned only with catching waves and picking up girls. Abbie knows he is not the best target for her young romantic feelings – and her best friend, ‘Hollywood’, has cautioned her against those feelings enough times. When Abbie has so few links in her life, she finds comfort in her steadfast feelings for Kane, even as she rallies against their hopelessness (not least of all because of their familial connections, however distant and bloodless). 

I don’t want romance and stolen kisses and sweetness and hand holding. I want something so big it’s like two planets colliding, with an aftershock that I feel for the rest of my life.

But when Kane returns from a surf trip with his mates, there is something decidedly wrong with him. He’s cagey and cryptic, talking about a mysterious island he visited with those mates and the local’s superstitions of the place after dark for its ‘bad demon shit’. Abbie observes Kane’s erratic behaviour with growing concern – his punch-up with the local surf bully, and a shifting shadow that seems to cloak him, that only Abbie can see. . .

There is such a sinister ambiance throughout ‘Night Beach’, that Eagar’s ability to conjure fright and tension in the reader is bordering on sublime . . .  I read this book at night, under the covers and looking out the window into a blackened evening. And I've got to say, it was the best way to read a book that so delights in being a horror story. Once again, Eagar masterfully paints a very different version of Australia’s iconic sandy beaches – turning them once more into an unsettled and unpredictable landscape. Question-marks drawn into the sand, a flock of birds shedding hundreds of feathers in the surf. . . Eagar slowly but surely flips Aussie geography on its axis, and imbues it with a whole new meaning and menace.

Abbie loves surfing, but what she really craves is the ocean. When no place and no one in Abbie’s life truly feel permanent or reliable, the ocean feels like home. So it’s wonderful to read the way the beauty of the sea turns into a very different landscape throughout the book, warping and shifting with Kane’s mystery that seems somehow linked to Abbie and her sacred home. The other way Eagar turns the tide is in the violence of the men for whom the ocean is a playground, and they’re king of the kids. Local surfer Greg Hill was once great, but is now a bullying menace on the waves. He harasses Abbie’s friend, Hollywood, and is hell-bent on a revenge attack against Kane. This too is something Eagar excels at; her observations of men and their pack-like behaviour, both in the water and out, that is wonderfully translated through the politics of surfing;

To really belong, you have to be really good, really tough, really psychotic, really fearless, really misogynistic, really violent – any of these might do. But loving it isn’t enough. And being nice is a handicap, unless you’re also an excellent surfer, in which case they’ll say you’re a top bloke. Only blokes belong of course, but that goes without saying.

Abbie is the stand-out of this novel. She’s utterly relatable and wonderful – navigating her first and arguably doomed love with older step-cousin, Kane. She is the book’s narrator, and some of her observations of this tricky time in her life, when her feelings overrun her common sense, are enviably communicated.

Pretending to be good, even if no one is around to see it, calms me down. It makes me feel virtuous and protected. Clean of sex stink.

But Abbie is especially interesting for her other obsession - art. She has prints of Brett Whitely works hanging on her wall, and expresses her thoughts in relation to Rene Magritte illusionary classics. There’s a real delight in reading ‘Night Beach’, of writing down the artists Abbie references and looking up the artworks she is thinking about; like the surreal splendour of a Dorothea Tanning painting, or ‘Thebes Revenge’ that she loves most.

‘Night Beach’ reads like an ocean swell; turning and flipping the reader, dunking us under the cool depths of Eagar’s beautiful and complex story. It is at once a coming-of-age novel, as Abbie comes to terms with her imperfect and fractured family, and her complicated love for Kane. The book is also a look at the influences and triggers of creativity – as Abbie looks at her world with an artist’s eye, and feeds her creative instincts with her problematic feelings for Kane, and the shadowy presence that haunts him. . . which carries us to the final aspect of the book, the pervading danger that Kane bought home with him, the ‘something’ that stalks Abbie and sets wine glasses ringing. . .

‘Night Beach’ is the quintessential young adult horror story – the mysterious shadows will keep you up at night, but it’s the teenage protagonist’s personal struggles that will keep you suctioned to the page, as desperate to find out about her doomed love story as the island mystery. This is, without a doubt, one of the most anticipated new Australian young adult novels of 2012, and Kirsty Eagar’s new tale absolutely earns and deserves all the hype and anticipation.

5/5

'Raw Blue' by Kirsty Eagar

From the BLURB:

Carly has dropped out of uni to spend her days surfing and her nights working as a cook in a Manly café. Surfing is the one thing she loves doing ... and the only thing that helps her stop thinking about what happened two years ago. Then she meets Ryan and Carly has to decide. Will she let the past bury her? Or can she let go of her anger and shame, and find the courage to be happy?

Carly is hiding.

She has dropped out of uni and off her family’s radar. She is living with a salsa-dancing, man-mad Dutch woman and working as a short-order cook at the cafe in a surf town. At night Carly’s nightmares creep in, and sometimes while driving she’ll be tempted to run herself into the guardrail and end it all. . .

But during the day, and especially early in the morning, Carly is found.

She surfs and she remembers why she’s still here. The beautiful moments when she catches a wave and is in the tunnel of the surf . . . in those moments, Carly thinks that maybe she can go on.

But she is still hiding. She’s hiding from her fear, and her anger. Fear of men and their pack-like behaviour and intimidating masculinity. And her anger about what happened to her that night . . .

But Carly can’t hide forever. She can’t hide from her new surf buddy, the young boy Danny who has synesthesia and sees people’s true colours. And she can’t hide from Ryan, a local surfer with a shady past who makes Carly feel safe, for the first time in a long time.

‘Raw Blue’ was the 2009 debut novel from Kirsty Eagar, which also won the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Young Adult Fiction prize.

I read this book last year, shortly after I interviewed Ms Eagar about her second novel, ‘Saltwater Vampires’. I never wrote a review of ‘Raw Blue’ though, mostly because I feared being unable to do the book justice. And also because after my first reading, I had to put the book down and walk away for a little while. Because that’s what sort of book ‘Raw Blue’ is. It stays with you, burrows deep and gnaws away months after reading so that you keep turning it over and admiring new angles and smoothing it out. But recently ‘Raw Blue’ warranted a re-reading, and I now feel able to get my thoughts down and communicate my praise.

‘Raw Blue’ is, first and foremost, a novel about anger. It’s about how anger and its triggering grief will never remain dormant for long, no matter how much we try bottling it. At the beginning of the novel, Carly is deep in repression. She has secrets and angry scars of hurt – but when we meet her she is trying to push forward and put a bandaid over her war wounds. She has dropped out of uni, gotten a low-paying but steady job and sequestered herself in a surf town where nothing much is expected of her except catching the next big wave.

But despite her best efforts at normalcy and getting lost in her love of surf . . . flashes of anger and grief shine through. When she’s driving, Carly imagines running her car off the road. And when a large group of men come into the cafe, she can’t stop thinking of them and being aware of their presence while she hides in the kitchen out back.

Carly is hiding a deep hurt, and a traumatic event. The details of this moment slowly leak into the story, but it’s with great reluctance on Carly’s part, and reads like pulling teeth as she pieces together the moments of a night she’d rather forget.

I loved that Eagar is dealing with a very big ‘issue’ in an utterly un-explosive way. There is no one moment that pushes Carly to a major reveal of her deep, dark secret. Rather, it’s a gradual picking apart bought on by a number of factors. Like Carly’s easy conversations with the beautiful and sweet Danny, who has synesthesia and attaches colour to people and objects. Or her reluctant attraction to Ryan, a fellow surfer whose shady past and questionable friends terrifies Carly, but whom she can’t help but be drawn to.

I bury my face in my hands. And then Ryan does such a nice thing. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in against him. I can feel his body heat through his cotton T-shirt, and directly in front of me are the worn, faded knees of his jeans. But most of all, I can smell him. And he smells sandy-warm, like a beach. No one can see my face in there protected by his chest. Which is good because I can’t stop crying. I mean, I’m really going for the world record in terms of an inappropriate public breakdown. But it doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter. I’m sheltered.

The surf setting is wonderful, both because Eagar has a clear love and affinity for the sport, but also because it forces Carly to confront her demons. It’s definitely a blokey sport – not for the timid that aren’t willing to muscle in on a wave or call someone out when they steal yours. Carly loves surfing, but she can’t deny that it’s a male-dominated ocean out there, and while she may think of herself as damaged and frightened, readers see in the way she holds her own on a surfboard that she isn’t necessarily scared of men – not when she’s willing to surf with the big boys and take the waves that come her way.

Eagar beautifully harmonizes Carly’s inner explorations with the surf-setting and lifestyle. Grief and anger come in waves. Sometimes they’re lulling – like calm waters. But all it takes is an unexpected swell to send you down into the deep, drowning and struggling, unsure of which way is up and how to find air. That’s ‘Raw Blue’, it’s about the moments of calm that trick Carly into thinking a wave of emotion isn’t right around the corner, about to drag her out to sea.

5/5

'Saltwater Vampires' by Kirsty EAGAR

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

He looked to the sky, praying for rain, a downpour, some sign from the heavens that he should refuse the abomination contained in that flask. But all he saw was the bloated white face of the moon smiling down on him …

And the sky around it was cold and clear and black …

They made their circle of blood. And only the moon witnessed the slaughter that followed.

For Jamie Mackie, summer holidays in the coastal town of Rocky Head mean surfing, making money, and good times at the local music festival. But this year, vampires are on the festival's line-up … fulfilling a pact made on the wreck of the Batavia, four hundred years ago. If their plans succeed, nobody in Rocky Head will survive to see out the new year.

‘Saltwater Vampires’ is being called ‘a distinctly Australian vampire thriller’.

The book opens in 1629, and introduces the Dutch shipwreck survivors of the Batavia. Among them is Jeronimus Cornelisz, an apothecary with a questionable offer of immortality for three other survivors; David Zeevanck, Gerrit Haas and Jan Pelgrom;

The apothecary leaned forward and whispered, “You want to know about the trick within the trick.”

Skip forward to present day and we meet Jamie Mackie; a fifteen-year-old Rocky Head native. He loves the sun, sand, surf and Rocky Head’s annual music festival. Jamie lives for the waves and the oblivion of riding inside a wall of water. Surfing has become quite cathartic to Jamie since a boating accident saw his best-friend permanently scarred and refusing to talk to him. Things have been tense between Jamie and Dale ever since the accident, but Jamie never thought that Dale would go so far as to attack him... While surfing one morning Dale starts swinging fists in the ocean, ending the fight with a vicious bite to Jamie’s neck. What follows is Jamie’s hunt for answers, along with his best friend Tanner, Dale’s girlfriend Kelly and new resident of Rocky Head, Talia – this group of surfer locals uncover more than they ever bargained for and discover a dark side to Rocky Head.

Jamie removed his sunglasses, squinting at Willem.
“Too bright for you?” Willem asked knowingly.
It was. Blindingly bright. Jamie had to jam his sunglasses back on. “How do you know it’s a bite?”
“I said, it’s a special kind of bite. And it must be real because I don’t know why you’d manufacture something like that. It’s completely at odds with your type.”
“My type?”
“You’re a capitalist waxhead. Not the type who’s into dark fantasy.”
“You got that right. Even if I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about nigthwalkers, bloodsuckers, phantoms of the night...Vampires.”

Apart from Keri Arthur’s ‘Riley Jenson’ series, Australian authors really haven’t jumped on the Urban Fantasy/Vampire bandwagon. Personally, I think that all needs to change... because ‘vampires’ as a subject are not a passing fad. They are a genre unto themselves, and there’s definitely room in the Australian book market for some uniquely Aussie vampire tales... case and point, Eagar’s ‘Saltwater Vampires’.

How to describe this book? It’s an eclectic mix of the very best of Vampirism and Australian culture. It’s reminiscent of the 1987 cult-classic ‘The Lost Boys’, with a dash of Keanu’s ‘Point Break’, and a nod to the ‘Underworld’ movie franchise. But still with an Aussie flair, for Eagar’s writing style reminded me of our two heavy-weight authors (in their respective readerships) Tim Winton and John Marsden.

The pace is slow, and I found that initially hard to overcome. But at some point it clicked for me that this is an *Australian* vampire novel. Eagar isn’t writing to Urban Fantasy conventions as I've come to know them through American UF books. Eagar is instead putting an Aussie spin on an old gothic tale. And the fact of the matter is; every country in the world has different storytelling conventions, and Aussie books likewise have a different flavour. I would say our books prefer a more relaxed narrative style, letting the character’s introduce themselves and the story unravel as it will. The slower pace also works for the fact that this is a surfing novel, and there’s something about that culture that’s all about being laidback and carefree.

Eagar beautifully delves into characterization. As much as the vampire plot is exhilarating and terrifying, Eagar’s exploration of her character’s motivations is equally intricate and submerging. Jamie is a boy who hates himself. He let his best mate down and is now living with survivor’s guilt. Jamie is a wonderful hero for all his flaws and complexities, some of which are on the surface, but readers also have to work to recognize his deeper scars.

Jamie’s ‘Scooby gang’ consist of his best mate and quintessential surfer dude, Tanner (who yawns when he’s nervous. Ha!). Dale’s girlfriend, Kelly, with whom Jamie has his own complications. And new Rocky Head resident, Talia, who uses her hotness magic on the boys. This isn’t your typical crack-squad of vampire hunters, but they are very typical Australian teenagers and a chance for Eagar to hold up a very apt mirror to our younger generation.

Eagar has really used the Australian landscape to great horror advantage. ‘Saltwater Vampires’ takes place in and around the sea (Australia is an island; after all). The sand and surf make for an eerie backdrop to the collision and confrontations with the vampires. The eeriness of a black ocean at night, and the loneliness of crashing waves; Eagar captures this picturesque Australian scenery and turns it into an astonishingly spine-tingling gothic setting;

“By then, the tip of a lava-orange sun had appeared over the horizon. The ocean was purple and grey, bruised by the dawn sky.”

The story jumps between present day in Rocky Head, following Jamie as he searches for his friend Dale, and discovers more than he bargained for. Then a few chapters flashback to ‘Amsterdam, three weeks earlier’. In Amsterdam a covert organization called ‘Piravem’ guard the four original vampire bloodlines, but supernatural terrorism looms when Jeronimus Cornelisz steals the blood of ancient vampire, Vitus.
This jump-back was quite jarring, but once I let Eagar’s distinctly Australian narrative take the reigns the flashback paid off. Ten-fold. I had to stick with it, but the converging of storylines were worth the wait and moments of confusion.

The book does have a few problems. I had one small complaint about the vampire 'reveal', as it was a little too convenient and coincidental for my liking. Jamie bumps into a brainiac classmate who sees his neck wound and connects the dots because as well as being a super genius he is a fan of vampire fiction. The reveal was a little clunky for me. But having read a lot of Urban Fantasy, I know that lots of writers struggle with the plot technicalities of explaining vampires in the real world - at least Eagar didn't go the Stephenie Meyer route and have Jamie type keywords into a search engine.

Like I said earlier, Australian authors (or publishers?) really haven’t responded to the Vampire literary craze. I’m sure there’s lots of reasons for that – mainly that America has really cornered the market, and also that the Australian literary scene is by comparison smaller and heavy on the *literary*. I hope that changes, soon-ish. If Eagar’s ‘Saltwater Vampires’ is anything to go by, then we do have Australian voices out there that have a vampire tale to tell... and I, for one, would love to read about vampires in my backyard.

4/5