Sing Fox to Me – Sarah Kanake  Wood Green – Sean Rabin

My wont each morning, around seven, immediately after I arise from my slumbers, is to stand in our little back room, here by the river, to look out at my twin mountains. The window that faces upriver affords me a view of twin-humped Dromedary, the down river aspect leads my eyes to the organ-piped ramparts of Mount Wellington. These days many Tasmanians, myself included, prefer the name our first peoples bestowed on it – kunanyi. Its original name, early on in colonial times, was Table Mountain, before being rebadged after Waterloo. Some mornings neither mountain can be espied due to them being cloaked in mist, cloud, or the jerry coming down from the upper valley. Often one, or both, are iced by snow. If this is the case with Dromedary, we know during winter that yet another layer of clothing needs to be added. Both river and twin mountains, despite their ever changing moods, soothe me from the get-go; they set me up for the day ahead.

So it is perhaps circumstance that I was destined to read twin books, on booksellers’ shelves around the same time, where a local mountain shaped the fictionally occurring events.

One of the authors, Sean Rabin, at an early stage in his release, ‘Wood Green’, listed those on our island achieving success following the vocation he would seem to have a future in, given the quality of his first attempt. The reader was informed, via the voice of a taxi driver, that in our country’s literature, Tassie’s contribution is ‘bigger than you think.’ He was not only a verbose but, as well, an extremely well read cab driver, at least as far as his state’s product in print was concerned. ‘Well of course there are your notables like Richard Flanagan and Christopher Koch and Amanda Lohrey, but I bet you’ve never heard of Joan Wise or Nan Chauncy, have you?’ He then went on to list names commencing with Marcus Clarke and ending with Heather Rose, Gina Mercer, Katherine Lomer and Adrienne Eberhard. The fellow finished off by stating that he too was working on a novel – about the island’s early whaling industry.

I wondered, on reading those passages, if Sean himself, or perhaps Sarah Kanake, the writer of the other tome, ‘Sing Fox to Me’, would one day be spoken of in the same terms as the aforementioned? I do suspect Ms Kanake is the more likely, but time will tell.

And that is not to say that Rabin’s ‘Wood Green’ is a failure by any measure. It is a fine effort really; eminently consumable, but aspects did annoy me. It is lovely to read of my island’s multitudinous virtues, but at times the novel invoked a travel brochure designed to attract people to spend their next hols with us. And the constant reference to cutting edge music made me wonder as to Rabin’s motivation – in doing so does he think his readers will rush to YouTube to have a gander at what he was on about? For a while I thought that these too may be fictionalised as I hadn’t heard of any of them. Then I came across one I knew – Judee Sill. Usually each was accompanied by a precis as to why the musician(s) resonated (so hate that word) with one of the writers in residence in the village of Wood Green. There were similar literary references as well, again obscure – to my knowledge. Just get on with the story Sean. It is a cracker you have come up with. And otherwise, it did have me engrossed.

As with ‘Sing Fox to Me’, the fulcrum of this tale is a cranky old man – in ‘Wood Green’s’ case, the renowned, but reclusive, novelist Lucien Clarke. He lived on kunanyi’s shoulder, in a hamlet perhaps modeled on Ferntree or Longley. The old guy has employed Michael, a man in search of a new start and for whom the author was the subject matter for his uni thesis, to get his affairs in order. Of course, Michael Pollard also aspires to write something or other himself. The location for most of the action has a mix of characters who would do a tele soap proud. There’s a gay pub owner and a gay South African, with something to hide, about to take over the local store. Now I wonder what could happen there? The former owners, an estranged couple, have had enough. One just happens to be Lucien’s ex-lover, still hankering for his ministrations. There is also a b and b owner described by the cover blurb as ‘snivelling’. But the mix, like a compulsive soap, does get one in. The chapters are short and sharp, all 104 of them – and with the last score or so the novel does an about face and it may not be to everybody’s taste. But this scribe thinks it works just fine. As for the ending, well even a soap wouldn’t countenance going down that path.

There does need, I feel, to be more discipline with Mr Rabin’s self-indulgences, but he has come up with a great yarn about my city and its mountain. I’ll be lining up for his next release.

But, to my mind, of higher literary excellence was Sarah Kanake’s ‘Sing Fox to Me’. The Sunshine Coast lecturer and country music singer possesses some serious writerly chops.

The fellow in his winter years in this story’s case was Clancy Fox. He lived alone, but for his ghosts, on a mountain with a bleak and pluvial climate. The mountain’s elder is still, many years later, grieving for his lost daughter, River. ‘People say there’s no pain like the pain of losing a child and Clancy knew the truth of that more than most. He knew the missing, the aching. He knew the unending, circling misery of letting a child slip through his fingers, but he also knew the sorrow of forgetting and being forgotten.’ Now it is Clancy’s habit to go feral, to strip naked, wearing only a tiger skin, when he heads bush in search of his child. She may still be out there – out there somewhere with the tigers. River claimed to have seen them everywhere whilst she was alive – the old man sees hints of them in the shadows.

But then his other offspring turns up – the estranged David. He is in dire need of ‘finding himself’ after a marriage breakup, but first needs to dispose of his own two sons. He dumps the twins, Samson and Jonah, with Clancy and promptly shoots through. The old fella, with the aid of other local rustics, does the bast he can, but he’s no match, particularly for the disturbed Jonah. Samson, conversely, is a lovely creation from Kanake. He has Down syndrome, but this does not prevent him from becoming the most engaging of the denizens of ‘Sing Fox to Me’. This is particularly the case after meeting another damaged young soul in the surrounding bush and this soon forms their playground. But all is not right with Jonah. He does a runner, the community groups around old Clancy in his time of need, but soon there is yet another mystery to solve.

Ms Kanake, through very fine wordsmithery, evokes and enhances many of our island writers’ penchant for the gothic nature of our past – something that endures and afflicts to the present day. There’s some magic realism afoot too in this book, as there is in Rabin’s. Neither author bangs us on the head with it, but it’s there, lurking in the background.

So what we have are twin offerings, both thoroughly worthy of a reader’s time. It will be interesting to see if Kanake and Rabin kick on after these debuts. Meanwhile, this old bloke, not on a mountain’s saddle, but constantly peering each day to the high country surrounding the river he loves. He measures the mood of kunanyi and Dromedary – these being the twin mountains of his his own contented existence.

Michael – ‘And then, because I can’t hold out any longer, I take a chance, lean in and kiss her. So softly it makes my insides ache.’
Mina – ‘Every time I think of our lips locking, the feel of our tongues meeting, the tenderness with which he held me close to him, my stomach plunges the same way it does on roller-coaster rides.’

I like first kisses, especially when it comes to YA writing. But Michael and Mina’s was a long time coming.

My daughter is rarely wrong. She reads YA widely and recommends – and she was totally right with this one. I did doubt her for a short time. I thought Randa Abdel-Fattah’s story of these star crossed lovers was somewhat clunky in getting up and running, but once it got a head of steam up, this was a ravishing read. Hopefully it will become a favourite of readers of her targeted age group all across Oz – and maybe not just with the female gender.

Michael is a knockabout lad; typically Aussie – bright, but doesn’t ponder too deeply about stuff. On the other hand, his parents do. They run a ‘patriotic’ organisation called Aussie Values – and Michael goes along with them for the ride. The author portrayed his parents as good, caring people; very moderate, by Pauline Hanson standards. But their operation attracts the far right wing hangers on – those that peddle a message of hate. Michael’s mum and dad tolerate them – and it leads to trouble.

When Michael meets Mina he discovers she’s quite unlike any girl he’s ever had dealings with previously. And as they gradually grow closer, well then, two worlds collide. She’s an Afghani refugee, closeted by a deeply traumatised, but loving, family, who are starting to make headway with their new lives in Oz – until the numbskull element from Aussie Values get involved. All of a sudden Michael needs to make decisions as to where his loyalties lie; in effect, what really are his own values. Are they with family or a beautiful, compelling and intelligent young lady? One who has turned his life upside down.

I thoroughly enjoyed this tome. It throws light on the openings for hate that Abbott, Abetz, Morrison et al created with their recent regime, still sadly lingering under Turnbull. Our present policies are inhumane as well as illegal under international law, but – well don’t get me started. We were once far more tolerant, with this publication from Randa Abdel-Fattah highlighting those Aussies who have lost that side of their national character, as well as those who still retain it. At one stage Michael’s mother states that what’s happening in Australia, on the race issue, is like the soup she is preparing – ‘The dominant flavour is asparagus. I’ve got other spices and flavours in here too because that makes the soup so rich and flavoursome. But they complement the asparagus, they don’t take over.’ When Michael relates this to Mina, she explodes, ‘So let me get this right Michael. Australia is a big bowl of soup and Aussie Values is about protecting the asparagus from an over zealous pepper or cardamon pod.’

As the two main protagonists develop feelings for each other there are the subsidiary narrative lines involving their various mates to be resolved as well. Paula has a crush on a teacher whilst Jane is besotted by one of Michael’s dip-stick mates, unable to recognise that she is being used. Naturally all the strands, including the issues involved in the affection between the Aussie lad and the Afghani lass, are sorted by novel’s end. But even so, the way ahead may still not be overly easy for our main couple. For me, the sign of a terrific read is whether, by the time I turn the last page, I am disappointed that my time with the author’s creations is about to be terminated. I felt that way with this title and I can only hope there is a sequel in the offing. There’s scope Randa.

And, surprisingly, I found that I had something in common with Mina and Michael, despite the alarming number of decades in age difference. When they first met they bonded over an indie band, the XX. I have their first album and love it. Oh dear, who’d have thought?

The author’s website = http://www.randaabdelfattah.com/

Dave was pumped. He was afizz with excitement. He was dressed in his very finest New Wave gear. He and his mates had left the ‘burbs and had trained into the centre of Yarra City and were now standing outside the Hilton, yelling out their hero’s name and clutching his latest album. And to their incredulity, their rock god did indeed come out onto his balcony to wave at them. ‘An autograph. An autograph,’ the lads bellowed in unison, holding said album up high and shaking it at the figure spotted above. ‘He disappeared and then a few minutes later walked through the glass doors of the Hilton. Well, walked is not really correct; he perfectly glided across the concourse. He was the coolest guy we’d ever seen. He was wearing a white suit with his tight white shirt’s top button undone and a plain black tie.‘ Figured out who it was? A pop superstar dressed so suavely for those times? Sadly his coolness did not complete the exercise. Once he had glided closer and realised Dave and co weren’t girls, pandering for his attention and perhaps a little something else, Bryan Ferry promptly about-faced and retreated back to his penthouse suite.

It was the summer of ’82, a very hot summer Dave recalled on an ABC radio interview, promoting this memoir, that I caught recently in the wee small hours overnight. Coincidentally I was nearing the end of my own perusing of his book. In his responses, Dave regaled the listener with some of the yarns I had just finished reading. The opening chapters had our Dave finishing his exams, the results of which were a long way off in those pre-digital years. But Dave was not worried. The outcome was irrelevant for, you see, he was about to become a rock god himself. He was already in a band on bass/keyboards, such was his outrageous talent. The fabulous Captain Cocoa was destined to be the next hot group to emerge from the beer barns of Melbourne to flaunt their chops on ‘Countdown’, or so he insisted to himself. The rest would be history. Ah yes, heady days indeed.

But until fame came to collect him to lift him up and out of Mitcham, he had endless days to fill in – days when he would move from his trusty BMX to an orange Torana; days when he’d hitchhike from one end of Victoria to another to see a girl who’d whispered in his shell-like, ‘Come up and see me sometime’; days of part time jobs and days of falling in love with a fellow New Romantic. It’s glorious fare, redolent of William McInnes at his best, recalling his own life adventures. I just loved Dave’s book.

Being a stand-up comedian, Dave O’N is expert at spinning stories and his laconic tales stand-up (oh dear) well in print. I sorely miss his fortnightly musings for Friday’s issue of the Age, but cruising my way through this tome was a worthy alternative. There were a few stories I’d encountered before from him, but most of it was fresh to my eyes. In prose worthy of McInnes’ hilarious ‘A Man’s Got To Have A Hobby’, O’Neil lovingly lays out for us all the idiosyncratic peculiarities of his own old man, Kev; as well as the antics he and his brothers inflicted on family and neighbourhood – one even requiring a visitation from the bomb squad.

And we get, through our author, to meet some of the big names of the period – Dave was out and about in the summer of ’82, having close encounters with James Freud, Dave Mason of the Reels (one of my favs too then) and Lindy Morrison, girl drummer for the Go-Betweens. The Models, Uncanny X-Men and the Ted Mulry Gang also feature. Yep – real superstars of the era.

But there were also a few surprises in store for our hero during this summer. These included a close encounter with mortality, courtesy of his first car. He caught on early that young fellows like him weren’t bullet-proof. His matriculation results, when they finally came in the post, a story in itself, were a shock . As for Dave and his band mates, the road really was a long way to the top if you aspire to rock and roll. But they did achieve one aim – an appearance on national television. Nevertheless, through his band he did receive an inkling of just what life did have in store for him.

It is an easy read and I consumed it in a couple of sittings. His breezy style sucked me in – it’s quite beguiling. And I am hoping there’s a ‘Summer of ’83’. Summer of ’84, ‘Summer of ’85’….

The author’s website = http://daveoneil.com.au/