'how to make a basket' by Jazz Money

 

From the BLURB: 

Simmering with protest and boundless love, Jazz Money’s David Unaipon Award-winning collection, how to make a basket, examines the tensions of living in the Australian colony today. By turns scathing, funny and lyrical, Money uses her poetry as an extension of protest against the violence of the colonial state, and as a celebration of Blak and queer love. Deeply personal and fiercely political, these poems attempt to remember, reimagine and re-voice history. 

Writing in both Wiradjuri and English language, Money explores how places and bodies hold memories, and the ways our ancestors walk with us, speak through us and wait for us.

it starts with smoke, it always starts with smoke ... 

I was in the city the other day and knew I'd have time to burn, so I took Jazz Money's 2021 University of Queensland Press poetry collection with me, and went to the Fitzroy Gardens to read. 

I am long-overdue in coming to the page here, though I bought the book when it first came out. But I am glad that I waited for the right time and feeling to be open to this remarkable collection - and it did indeed feel cathartic and prophetic to read it when I did, on a bright Melbourne day in the Fitzroy Gardens ... 

And how accurate in a collection about "the tensions of living in the Australian colony today," that I did read it in those Gardens - near where Cooks' Cottage (a house where the parents of James Cook lived, brought from England in the 1930s) presides, in tribute to the coloniser. In the gardens where blue gums were removed to make way for sweeping lawns and ornamental flowerbeds (to look like some place other than here, it seems). Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful but - it's colony. 

And just as Money's collection opens with smoke and the Djab Wurrung sacred birthing trees in Victoria (mother burred at the belly swollen as the great trees come to this place) which the Andrews government bulldozed to make way for a new highway in 2020, ... they - we - lost something, to the colony. To progress and control. Infrastructure and destruction. Money is exploring this constantly in beauty and horror throughout the collection, and it's an absolute powerful and masterful gut-punch. 

Lilac sky swollen 

lights. A slick black car 

on slick black roads. 

 

Stars don't shine in this town 

only satellites 

humankind's wandering wonders. 

I'd rather wish on circuits

than lost black stars 

Outstanding.

'Gender Queer: A Memoir' Deluxe Edition by Maia Kobabe

 

From the BLURB: 

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Then e created Gender Queer. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fan fiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: It is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

'Gender Queer: A Memoir' by American graphic novelist Maia Kobabe came out in 2019, and has been on my radar since then, but I just never got around to getting my hands on it ... until an incident happened at a Queensland (Australian) public library that put the book back in my periphery in a big way; Gender identity memoir removed from Queensland library shelf, referred to classification board

The book is (as of March 26, 2023) still with the Australian Classifications Board (ACB) as far as I know and has been reported by the media here; Clock ticking on 'Gender Queer' censorship decision. And now having read the beautiful deluxe hardcover edition, for the first time ... I can only hope with my whole heart that common-sense and common-good prevails; and some of that bending towards justice happens, because this book is glorious and to deny the opportunity of young readers in particular to find the generosity of Kobabe sharing their story within its pages, would be an absolute travesty. 

Maia Kobabe uses e/em/eir pronouns – also referred to as Spivak pronouns - they are nonbinary, and queer and 'Gender Queer' is the memoir of how they fit the pieces of themselves together like a puzzle over the course of their child and young adulthood. 

What is particularly wonderful and connecting in the story, and makes the possible censorship ban in Queensland (and elsewhere, since the novel has been challenged in many schools across the US too) that much more saddening, is the fact that Kobabe really acknowledges the roles that pop-culture and fandom played in them figuring out who they are. 

I mean; 'Gender Queer' is a veritable *feast* of geekery - I myself was delighted to see references made to 'Strangers in Paradise' by Terry Moore, Archive of Our Own FanFiction writing, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Mont), 'Supernatural,' Tamora Pierce, 'Lord of the Rings,' One Direction, and David Bowie plus many, many more ... and perhaps - ironically, painfully - is the inclusion of how much the 'Harry Potter' fandom meant to Kobabe. It was a desire to finish those novels faster than their mother was reading one-chapter-a-night that pushed them to become a truly independent reader. But a figuring out of themselves via the media they consume plays such a big part in the story. 

Of Bowie's music for instance, Kobabe write; Bowie's music was the first that felt like mine, within a joyous illustration of their teenage-self vibing to the music in the middle of outer-space with the sun blazing as hot as their new passion, a rocket-ship zooming by and planet Earth waiting to welcome them back down with this fundamental new understanding of themselves, that Bowie has just gifted them ... YES! That's exactly what art can do.

Art changes people, and people change the world and I genuinely believe - I know! - that so many kids, parents, guardians, teachers, anyone! would be touched by this novel and have their understanding of gender and the binary lovingly, powerfully expanded through this tender tale. It's Kobabe rifling through their old diaries, fandoms, obsessions, crushes, and painful moments of body-awareness and self-discovery ... so generously gifted to the reader, and I myself was very thankful for the ways that they found to articulate and illustrate the complicated thoughts and feelings they were experiencing. I may not have had them myself, but I feel like I understand them because Kobabe writes with such patience and fortitude, I feel like my sympathy has grown. 

To deny the opportunities this book could bring would be the far greater injustice. It is perfectly aimed at older-teens in the young adult space, and to suggest it is inappropriate would be far more harmful. To all the young people who will see themselves within the pages, and no doubt feel the same sense of galaxy-bursting relief and happiness that Kobabe did upon hearing David Bowie for the first time.

C'mon, ACB - Let the children lose it, Let the children use it, Let all the children boogie ...

5/5

'My Baba's Garden' By Jordan Scott, Illustrated by Sydney Smith

 

From the BLURB: 

The special relationship between a child and his grandmother is depicted in this sumptuous book by an award-winning team. 

Inspired by memories of his childhood, Jordan Scott’s My Baba’s Garden explores the sights, sounds, and smells experienced by a child spending time with their beloved grandmother (Baba), with special attention to the time they spent helping her tend her garden, searching for worms to keep it healthy. He visits her every day and finds her hidden in the steam of boiling potatoes, a hand holding a beet, a leg opening a cupboard, an elbow closing the fridge, humming like a night full of bugs when she cooks. 

Poet Jordan Scott and illustrator Sydney Smith’s previous collaboration, I Talk Like a River, which received a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award expored a cherished memory shared between a father and son. In their new book, they turn that same wistful appreciation to the bond between a boy and his grandmother. Sydney Smith’s illustrations capture the sensational impressions of a child’s memory with iconic effect.

In 2020 I read author Jordan Scott and illustrator Sydney Smith's debut picture-book together, I Talk Like a River - about a young boy frustrated with his stutter, being taken on a day-trip by his Dad to reconnect with nature and learn to go slow, and take it easy on himself. 

That book - beautiful, gentle and empathetic - ended up winning the Schneider Family Book Award, and it has lived in me ever since. It was a perfect picture-book, and all the more powerful for being based on Scott's childhood which he wrote about in a short letter at the back of the book; about how is Dad would pick him up from school on "bad speech days," and how now as an adult he sees his stutter as a beautiful part of himself and how he communicates. 

I have been waiting for a second book from the duo ever since, and now it's finally here in 'My Baba's Garden' and it's just as stunning and powerful. 

This time in a letter at the start, Scott writes about 'My Baba' - explaining that this tale is also from his own childhood; of a young boy and his Polish grandmother who emigrated to Canada with her husband, the boy's Dziadek, after the terrible World War. The boy would be taken to his Baba's house (a renovated chicken coop beside a freeway) every day and she'd walk him to school; on rainy days being sure to pick up worms the weather scattered on the pavement, to be put to use in her beautiful and lush garden. 

The kicker - and connection to 'River' - is that the boy's Baba does not speak English, and he does not speak Polish. They communicate through touch, laughs, facial expressions and little rituals - like kissing food that's fallen on the floor, and then eating it immediately. 

This is another beautiful and timeless tale of communication and finding grace in ourselves and each other, the natural world, and little sacred rituals in the ever day to ground and connect us. Sydney Smith's darker illustrations with pops of red and yellow to draw the eye serve the story so beautifully, particularly in the rain-soaked pages where even droplets on windows are captured beautifully. 

I hope these two have more books in them, because I absolutely love being floored by the power and art in a story of such big ideas presented so tenderly through a child's lens. These two and their tales are *magical*!

5/5

'Compulsion' by Kate Scott

 

This novel was gifted to me by the publisher 

From the BLURB; 

It’s the turn of the new millennium, and the bright young things are partying like it’s the end of the world. Dark glamour and debauched music reign, gigs culminating with everyone on stage – or undressed. Lucy, editor of a music magazine, is at the blazing neon centre, ecstatically seeking oblivion. But as her life (featuring a stalker, a not-quite ex-husband, and an affair with a cold, charismatic musician) veers from complicated to chaotic, she burns it all down, decamping to the remote seaside town of her childhood ­– to start again. 

In Abergele, Lucy recreates her old existence in hothouse miniature. Past friends and compulsions reappear, along with new fascinations. One of them is Robin, photographer and lonely son of a famous producer. Recognising in each other a fellow exile and a rich source of distraction, they fall into step on daily rambles across the cliffs. Their charged conversations about music and philosophy function as both high-stakes flirtation and a stealth mechanism for understanding themselves, resulting in an intense bond that disarms them both. 

Compulsion is a razor-sharp debut about the transcendence of new highs, the allure of new lows, and the relentless power of our obsessions. Music, sex, food, drugs, fashion and nature coalesce to overwhelm the senses on every page.

'Compulsion' is the debut adult-fiction novel by Australian author Kate Scott, published by Penguin Random House and released in January of 2023.

I was very kindly gifted this copy while I was attending a meeting at PRH, and getting a squiz at their new Melbourne office location. I had this one pressed into my hands as a great read if I wanted some Y2K nostalgia, given that this novel is set in 2003 and 2004 and very much speaking to my millennium young-adulthood (I also loved its purple Vox Lux vibes!)

I don't know if the way I want to describe this novel is one the author will appreciate. Because I'm going to make a very millennial reference as a teenager of the early-00s that is such a specific pop-cultural definition of "cool" because it was so far removed from my actual life and youth (and yet I think the author was an *actual* cool person of the time, so might cringe at me reaching for this). Here it goes; ... imagine if Skins continued into the character's early-adulthood and their 20s. I'd also say there's a way I'd categorise this as a millennial The Great Gatsby if the 'green light' everyone reaches for is the bygone era of the 80s which, they're all convinced had better music, drugs, and sex ... even as in the most meta-way possible they're currently toiling in a novel about nostalgia for the early-naughties (and so we all beat on). Maybe this is a Y2K Almost Famous in which some characters are trying to grasp at the new music-scene, the new way of talking, and writing about said scene.

I don't know. There's a lot in here - but if you cook it all down, that logline is pretty accurate; Set against the backdrop of the new millennium, a seductive summer read about obsession, sex, friendship and music from an exciting new talent.

It's basically a novel revolving around the characters of Lucy and Robin who find themselves in their hometown of Abergele, in Wales - Lucy is a music magazine editor trying to write her first book, and fleeing some toxic romantic entanglements, who retreats to the seaside town of her childhood. Robin is a photographer and son of a famous music producer, back in town to be by the bedside of a sick relative. They stumble and slide into each other (Robin happens to be maybe-dating one of Lucy's ex-classmates and mean girl-ish nemeses who still lives in town). They form a walking-friendship and then Lucy forms a little cohort of friends old and new who come to her dining table at least once a week for lavish dinners, deep-and-meaningfuls, drugs, booze, and rapid-fire music listacles.

A good chunk of the novel is revelling in their revelry, getting across some hyper-specific and niche music opinions that kinda feels like those intense pop-culture asides in a Tarantino movie ... but eventually the path reveals itself, and there's a love story buried in here as Robin and Lucy flit and fumble towards some semblance of connection they're both clearly craving.

Straight up; if you're not in the mood for this novel, it'll piss you off (but isn't that true of most things?) I just mean; this is a novel that is buoyed by language and nostalgia. Maybe because I was in that "this is Skins!" headspace, but reading the novel's thirst for nostalgia even as the characters are living in the moment, I was reminded of this bit by UK comedian Simons Amstell where he talks about being a teenager and running screaming through the streets with his friends and even then thinking; "this is fun, this is what being young looks like, I better remember this because this is definitely what being a teenager is all about," in this never-ending paranoia narration of remembering not to forget, and not living enough in the moment while you're trying to imprint the moment;

Robin is struck by how beautiful everyone looks in the sky's humid matt-black embrace. He mustn't forget this, he thinks; he mustn't forget how young they are tonight.

The novel is almost lackadaisical in its plotting, but manic in its language and dialogue - some of which is so *lush* and delectable. Some sentences made me gulp, they were so delicious on the page; 

The air outside crackled and rasped. Our cab pulled away from the curb, and Anika opened the windows to drink in the dissolving afternoon. It carried the perfume of jasmine, frangipanis on the edge of rot, and trace elements of promise. The sunset gathered like a flock of flamingos and broke apart with fanfare.

See, I read that as an Aussie ‘Weetzie Bat,’ some real Francesca Lia Block vibes. And I dig it!

But even as I admired and loved some of this writing, even I can admit - it gets a little overwrought (especially when the plot itself is so languid) and huge chunks of the novel do indeed read like whatever tome and ode to music that Lucy is working on for her manuscript, but I really could have just done without (the descriptions of a song could be beautiful, but rapid-fire espousals on niche and obscure musical references just made me feel deeply uncool and head-spinny).

The other part of this novel that I didn't get (but just rolled with) is ... it's set in Abergele - why? Like, the whole time I was thinking that it *sounds* Australian. I could picture this all happening in an Aussie seaside town. The characters sound Australian, to me. The early-00s being drawn is the Y2K I remember living through (and I grew up on the Mornington Peninsula) ... but then I'll be walloped over the head with "actually, this is Wales." And I'm not sure *why*? The author (I don't think?) has ever lived in Wales? (I see she's lived in Newcastle and Brisbane though, and YES! - that's what this place reads like!) Was Abergele just to settle my "this-is-an-ode-to-Skins" opinion even more? Maybe the songs and artists being referenced were mostly European (I honestly could not tell you, most of the references were over my head) so they thought that music-diet should inform location? Was it so that Lucy could more easily scoot over to Berlin to write about the concert scene over there?

The setting isn't really drawn out overly (like I said: I read most of this thinking it was Australia) and apart from Lucy casually throwing off a fisherman's jumper or the author outright saying she needed to return to Abergele, I really wasn't getting "Wales" from it? And it's a shame. I think this novel could have had a whole new life and appreciation had the author accepted and promoted it as a Gatsby does millennial Brisbane.

Overall I really liked this when I was in the mood to pick it up. On a language and syntax level some of it is overwrought, but GOSH - is it fun! The author has a real talent that I look forward to tracking. Maybe 'Compulsion' is a little navel-gazey and too focused on sounding clever (much like the characters), and some aspects sound good on blurb but read empty on the page (like the aforementioned Abergele setting - nothing against Wales! But ... you're an Aussie author, embrace it!)

But as a debut I'm pretty impressed that the author has such a voice on them. I'm also not in the least surprised to discover the Kate Scott has come from the Zeitgeist Agency stable, who I think are very voice-y literary agents and tend to nail it (brava). This one rather tickled me, but maybe I'm just a millennial chasing that nostalgia-hit that Scott blows out so prettily ... if that sells it to you, then; this is like a Skins redux for millennial adults.

4/5

'Spare' by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex audiobook (read by the author) ghost-writer, J.R. Moehringer

From the BLURB:

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow - and horror. As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling - and how their lives would play out from that point on.

For Harry, this is that story at last.

With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

Prince Harry wishes to support British charities with donations from his proceeds from Spare. The Duke of Sussex has donated $1,500,000 to Sentebale, an organisation he founded with Prince Seeiso in their mothers' legacies, which supports vulnerable children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana affected by HIV/AIDS. Prince Harry will also donate to the non-profit organisation WellChild in the amount of £300,000. WellChild, which he has been Royal patron of for fifteen years, makes it possible for children and young people with complex health needs to be cared for at home instead of hospital, wherever possible.

‘Spare’ is indeed, the sensational memoir by Prince Harry – ghost-written by Pulitzer-prize winning author and journalist, J.R. Moehringer – and which is currently the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time (according to Guinness World Records) having sold 1.43 million copies on its first day, unseating Barack Obama’s memoir record.

With my agent hat on too; Harry's non-fiction book is also giving a good news boost to the most beleaguered bookish format of the pandemic, which desperately needed it (from 2022 roundup, Publishers Weekly; "...with the largest drop coming in the industry’s biggest category, adult nonfiction, where print sales fell 10.3%.") A rising tide floats all boats, and the same way the Obama's memoirs boosted non-fiction sales the world over, so too is Harry's when the form has been floundering. Bravo, and many thanks!

I listened to the audiobook (which was a phenomenal experience in itself, highly recommend - and not just because at AUD$23 the iTunes audiobook is way cheaper than the RRP hardback at indie bookstores, a AUD$60 whopper!)

What immediately struck me about ‘Spare’ is how well-written it is. Once the Spanish translation dropped a week ahead of embargoed release, and the press (largely driven by the British media pack) started picking it apart with their teeth, they very much implied that it was a salacious piece of ‘Mommie Dearest,’-esque tat. But it’s not that. It’s ghost-written by J.R. Moehringer who is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, and it shows in evocative and haunting writing (early on there are descriptions of a childhood at Balmoral, like it’s a Highland Disneyland – full of beloved ghosts and legends – and from those evocative pages you just know you’re in very good storytelling hands.)

Moehringer also gifts ‘Spare’ with an important journalistic structure; that there is an argument and thematic through-line to the entire thing … which is; the breakdown of the 4th estate for their embedded relationship with the royal family, and the toxicity of the press – particularly the British tabloid press.

For all that people have been making fun of frozen todgers and Freudian Elizabeth Arden that’s also in the pages, it is actually a book with a lot of subtle layers and connections made throughout, and I was genuinely impressed at the literary prowess and strong argument at the heart of ‘Spare.’ And I’m also not surprised that the same press pushing the salaciousness are doing so to avoid Harry’s true grievance and message which is; a large corner of the British press, owned by Rupert Murdoch (who Harry takes repeated and named aim at), is not fit for purpose. He’s taking the angle of how this has almost become like an abusive relationship the royals have wandered into and now can’t get out of (on his father Charles’s relationship to the press; “He hated their hate, but oh - how he loved their love!”) but I read it and more see the implication that if a large cohort of the media are in bed with the royals, and can be bribed with leaks and tattle-tale from their comms teams, to swap out weighted stories for clickbait … then who is *actually* holding one of the most powerful families and institutions to account, if it’s not the 4th estate – who are seemingly bought and paid for, by the royal family?

I’m sure that’s not the actual message Harry intended people to take away – but it’s there for the taking, certainly. And this is probably closer to the real reasons the royals, their ‘true believer’ staff, and the cottage-industry of media who make money off their backs - are really disgruntled with Harry – because if you start tugging on one thread of his story, the whole institution starts to unravel with his revelations.

This happens a few times throughout, actually – Harry gets pretty close to a deeper understanding, but keeps it at the personal and somewhat surface-level and refrains from taking it out-wide into the ramifications for the monarchy.

In fact; Harry’s ongoing support for monarchy is a small mark against the book overall, in my opinion – but I understand, the same way that 13-year-old Harry recounts travelling to Africa with his father and hearing an oral historian recount the Zulu War, which Harry listens to intently and only reveres the ‘red coats’ mentioned in the battle … I get it; he’s had more conditioning and indoctrination than most, and it’ll take longer and a lot more to break those bonds that have been ingrained and sold for him as a birthright and history to be proud of. I can appreciate that he’s signalling he needs to put more work in (and he admits as much; he looks back on that memory of hearing about the Zulu war, and can now see the glitch in his thinking).

The other mark against the book for me was the war chapters (yes I'm anti-war, but I know why Harry included them for his ongoing work with veterans and mental health - which makes a very good case for inclusion in the book) ... no, it's more because I was bored listening to how a helicopter works. Total snooze-fest!

Grief is the other big theme of this book – and love. Those two, always together and entwined. Harry really sadly speaks of being in his early 20s and certain he’ll be a “young dad” – marry young and start a family. It’s pretty clear that his own family is not close and overly-affectionate and he wants to start that for himself, have that and build it. But he’s constantly thwarted – girlfriends are scared off by the media and he’s lonely. That also rings very, hurtfully, true. He’s a lonely kid who grows up to be a lonely young man, wayward and a little lost most of the time. Especially after the media also help in cutting-short his army career (leaks mean his position in Iraq and Afghanistan are signalled to the enemy - an Australian woman's magazine is actually the first to break an embargo and print his whereabouts - putting him and many around him in danger. FFS, it happens so often throughout - he's utterly warranted in hating them, the bogeymen of his childhood grown to being his adult tormentors).

It's why the Meghan chapters feel like a turning-point in so many ways - because what is absolutely undoubted is how much he loves her. He's absolutely head-over-heels, and frankly I get it. She's *gorgeous* and charming, intelligent and thoughtful ... a real "ohhhhhh," moment comes early in their relationship, when Harry recounts a small argument they had, inconsequential - but he responds with too much rage and tone that the situation does not call for. Meghan calmly slips away, Harry goes to find her once he's also more centred and she says - in no uncertain terms - that she won't be spoken to that way, ever, and this will not be how they go about arguing (with rage). Harry sheepishly apologises, and Meghan asks him if there's a reason he thinks that's the way adults settle arguments (this is also when she gently asks him if he's ever had therapy - to which Harry says he tried, but it didn't work. Meghan probably saves his life when she says, "try again.")

I see a lot of people mocking his constant references to “mummy,” and the many times he looks for spiritual connections and signs from her (at one point even speaking to a spirit-medium, which he’s pretty sure is bunk, but is also desperate enough for connection to at least give it a go.)

I’m very happy for the people who’ve never lost a loved one, making fun of all this stuff in the memoir and trying to push Freudian connections. Congratulations to them. I just read it as a deep well of grief that keeps painfully contracting and expanding. Listening to this on audiobook, it was a wholly wrenching and wonderful listening experience – not least because deep missing and love for Diana rings through his voice, as does his grief. Harry is at once self-deprecating and serious when he details what he believes to be signs from Diana, and it’s hard to fault him on this when - for instance - Tyler Perry even surprisingly says the reason he offered to help Harry and Meghan settle in America, is Diana (his late mum was a fan) or Archie fixating on an old-looking painting at Perry’s house, which upon closer-inspection has a plaque stating that it is a depiction of goddess Diana – on the hunt. I do get it, the spiritual medium stuff *is* odd, but it’s also … grief. I’ve patiently listened to family who’ve detailed signs they’ve received from our loved ones who passed, and I believe that they believe it because they need to. That’s all.

The big thing that surprised me in this book was, I came away with a better opinion of William and Kate Middleton (I KNOW! Who'd have thunk?) For all that the press have glommed onto they physical altercations and intimidation between the Heir and the Spare, I think Harry actually highlights a few realities of royal life I was unaware of and works to show the ways that his whole family - but maybe his older brother especially - are trapped by this cycle that Charles and Camilla in particular, welcomed into the royal roster (that is; the hiring of ex-Government and media spin-doctors in comms teams, a precedent of leaking against each other and an unhealthy obsession with tracking their popularity as catalogued by the media ...) The fact that the only other person around who can understand William's unique and difficult position is his own father, who is obsessed with one-upping his son as the next in line to the throne. I genuinely got the impression that William is stuck, and lashing out because of it - and has little to no interest in the Crown whatsoever, but is playing the part he's been assigned.

What's missing from 'Spare' seems to be a surprising amount. Namely to do with the Queen and Prince Philip who are both really missing from its pages ... I'd suggest that might have been a decision after both their deaths, and in respect to the fact that they couldn't respond to any of Harry's claims. There's a part of me - personally - that wonders if a big thread that was cut out, is whether or not the Queen in her later-years was not as "with it" when it came to these machinations with the press and day-to-day decisions of her office? I'd say that's likely, and I would not be surprised if royal employees (like the Bee, Wasp and Fly who Harry aliases from her comms teams) and maybe under permission of Charles & Co. over-stepped, lied, and did as they thought best, knowing the Queen wasn't as hands-on as she'd previously been. “Is he in the room with you, granny?” Harry asks his grandmother at one point, after he's been thwarted in seeing her by one of her courtiers (after she'd encouraged him only the day before, to come and see her since she had the whole day free.)

Mmmmm. I think it’s possible that what was left out of ‘Spare’ could have been questions about the Queen’s capacities in her final years, and maybe how some people in her circle took advantage of her diminished health …

'Spare' has been made out to be a bit of a circus. It's not that. It's Harry, I think, providing his own historic record and ensuring that one primary product of the press (stories about him, and his wife) are depleted by him, and him alone (yes, for profit - which is another revenge against those who've been profiting off their story and tragedy for years.)

He's taking all the air out of his own tale, so that it is devalued for those people who've plagued him - and his family - their whole lives. In doing so he's also taking a considerable amount of shine off the Crown jewels, for sure. Showing that at the end of the day, they're just people - as dysfunctional as most others.

Once this historic family of Harry's held onto their divine right by blood and battle - now the battlefield has changed to the press and social media, but there's still a war being raged and if nothing else, Harry is taking himself and his family off the chess-board once and for all. A spare pawn, no more.

4.5/5

'Olympus, Texas' by Stacey Swann

 

From the BLURB: 

A bighearted debut with technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot in which marriages struggle, rivalries flare, and secrets explode, all with a clever wink toward classical mythology. 

When March Briscoe returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother's wife, the Briscoe family becomes once again the talk of the small town of Olympus. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with open arms. Her husband's own past affairs have made her tired of being the long-suffering spouse. Is it, perhaps, time for a change? Within days of March's arrival, someone is dead, marriages are upended, and even the strongest of alliances are shattered. In the end, the ties that hold them together might be exactly what drag them all down.

'Olympus, Texas' by Stacey Swann came out in 2021, and I’ve had the book (kindly sent to me by Hachette Australia at the time) on my TBR ever since.

It’s the second week of 2023 and I think I’ve already had one of my best reading experiences, and a new fave book.

The way I’d describe it is … if ‘One Tree Hill’ had been developed by HBO. This would be it. ‘Olympus, Texas’ is basically southern gothic, Greek myth, soap-opera. If you liked ‘Early Morning Riser’ by Katherine Heiny, you’ll dig this. And yes there's obviously Greek Mythology inspo throughout, but look me in the eye and tell me Mount Olympus wasn't just the first Coronation Street, Dallas, or Summer Bay ...

It’s all about the Briscoe family of Olympus whose patriarch Peter (the Zeus-esque character) had three children out of wedlock, on top of the three he had in his marriage to matriarch, June (or, Hera). And all the kids were raised in small town Olympus; one with the secret of their paternity, while twins of Peter’s mistress were welcomed into the Briscoe family fold.

When we meet this twisty family - the stars of small-town gossip - it’s spanning a couple of tumultuous weeks in their lives, kicked off when Peter and June’s middle son March returns home after two years of exile, for sleeping with his brother’s wife.

Everything is a powder-keg ready to explode as this family and the people who orbit them keep repeating generational traumas and mistakes. It’s delicious. I gasped, I laughed, I cried.

Of course people are going to come to this and read more of the Greek Myth overtones - Peter's mistress was Lee who had twins called Artie and Arlo that were permitted to be half-siblings to the "official" Briscoe children; which is the Leto being seduced by Zeus and giving birth to Apollo and Artemis thread. March - the troubled brother who slept with his sister-in-law - is Hades, cast out of the family for his indiscretions and temper, returned when the story begins (with two big dogs in tow, veritable Cerberus). That's totally cool if you want to connect-the-dots with all the wonderful Greek Myth keynotes, but I got a lot of enjoyment out of the book by not going too hard-eyed into that side, I really took it at face-value as Soap Opera (which is all the Geek Myths are anyway, lol - Aphrodite cheated on Hephaestus with Ares, you what!)

Ultimately this is a really beautifully-written book, so compelling as to feel like you’re reading a tightly-choreographed dance, or the entirety of a first season of prestige television … it’s that southern charm with gothic undertones, stories about people using each other as weapons to make themselves feel better and how we all play certain characters to appease our families and communities.

Whew. I’m gonna be thinking about this one for a LONG time, and recommending it far and wide!

5/5

'The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner: A memoir' by Grace Tame

Received from the publisher 

 

From the BLURB; 

Grace Tame has never walked on middle ground. 

From a young age, her life was defined by uncertainty - by trauma and strength, sadness and hope, terrible lows and wondrous highs. As a teenager she found the courage to speak up after experiencing awful and ongoing child sexual abuse. This fight to find her voice would not be her last. 

In 2021 Grace stepped squarely into the public eye as the Australian of the Year, and was the catalyst for a tidal wave of conversation and action. Australians from all walks of life were inspired and moved by her fire and passion. She was using her voice and encouraging others to use theirs too. 

The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner is Grace's story, in Grace's words, on Grace's terms. Here she returns, again and again, to the things that have driven and saved her: love, connection and radical, unwavering honesty. Like Grace, this book is sharply intelligent, deeply felt, wildly unexpected and often blisteringly funny. And, as with all her work, it offers a constructive and optimistic vision for a better future for all of us.

I spent the day reading ‘The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner: A memoir’ by Grace Tame - kindly gifted by PanMacmillan.

*Deep breath*

I found this to be both pulverising and illuminating.

As a memoir it stretches and reverberates. Grace jumps around in her own timeline, sometimes - and she can give a long-eyed gaze over her lifetime, and then snap it short when she pleases. This is her right, and it makes it sound more like *her* - and the way her actually autistic mind works.

In reading, I was relieved to discover that I didn’t actually know a lot about the trial relating to Grace Tame as the survivor of ongoing childhood sexual abuse. I had more knowledge of her work post-trial in which her abuser was convicted, and she became an activist (and Australian of the Year) speaking out on behalf of victims and campaigning for better respect for them, particularly by and in the media.

So I’m glad that I really only have Grace’s account, but I - of course! - still found her writing about the schoolteacher who groomed and abused her to be horrific. It’s hard to read. Of course it is. But she writes it at once with such clear-eyed memory, intricately layered with tender context and knowledge of how abuse looks, feels and how predators work. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to recount - alongside her abuse as a child too, and her anorexia as a result of ongoing trauma. But I found her recounting to be necessarily forthright, while still retaining a tender sadness for the girl she was. I also thought the way she kept survivors front of mind in the narrative was subtle but hugely powerful.

And then I was deeply disturbed (but not surprised) by the many ways Grace was failed. Particularly by her school - who have since had many more survivors come forward with accusations against that rock spider of a creeper teacher, Nicolaas Bester.

Even recently, Grace recalls how she was vilified for refusing to smile in photographs with then Prime Minister Scott Morrison - who failed survivors at every turn of his Prime Ministership. She isn’t unaware of the fact that she did everything “right” - her abuser even boasted of his crimes and was convicted - but she is still hated and disbelieved. Because she lives in the light. Because she has challenged institutions and powerful individuals, and always will.

At one point, Grace writes that she feels certain she’ll write more books than just this one. She talks about her life lived with art (and indeed, she illustrated the incredible front cover!) - some of her sentences and thoughts within are so prickly and perfect (“That sticky, sticky voice.”) and I too feel certain that she is just beginning. I know she is. It’s all ahead of her - but even knowing that, I was grateful for the balm of this book, and Grace showing people what survivorship can look like. Imperfect. Chaotic. Messy. Unrelenting. Ongoing.

Grace doesn’t owe the public anything. But I am glad for a generous spirit and decision to share her story many times over. She keeps reaching out in the dark, and I feel very strongly that those who need to - will keep finding her. This book is just another beacon.

5/5