Juice, by Tim Winton.

 

            An old man and a little girl travel east in a land turned to ash and desert;  eventually they stop for shelter at an abandoned mine works – except that it isn’t abandoned:  a bowman is in residence and fancies the look of their transport, and the batteries that power it.  He takes them prisoner and, to play for time, the old man tells him the story of how they arrived at this last Godforsaken place in the southeast of what used to be Australia – before human greed and power-hungry tinpot dictators wrecked the planet by fossil-fuel extraction – Juice.

            Tim Winton has written a frightening, dystopian and brilliant story in spare, beautiful language of the consequences of climate change, global warming, and how the remainder of the population survived ‘The Terror’ – when nature got payback for all the overuse of precious resources;  now survivors use all their ingenuity to keep batteries going so that they can have light and transport, and formerly big cities are now walled to repel lawless bandits.  The old man paints a stark picture of his childhood in a hamlet near the tropic of Capricorn, raised by his strict but loving mother as a plantgrower:  money no longer has any power;  food of all kinds is the currency:  food can be traded for other commodities – building materials, fowls for eggs and spare parts for the vehicles.  It is a very simple, lonely life, but when he is seventeen, he is recruited into a secret organisation called the Service, where all members are Operators, and trained in many and various ways to ‘acquit’ the world’s polluters – ‘acquit’ being a euphemism for assassinate:  the teen doesn’t tell his plantgrower mum that he has been recruited;  he just says that he has to go foraging for whatever he can find that is useful, even though he sometimes sustains serious injuries, but he doesn’t want to worry her.

            Or Sun, his great love, and the daughter he has with her, Ester (The only two named characters in the book), who eventually abandon him when he is absent ‘foraging’.  Now he is self-appointed guardian of the mute little girl, and wants to team up with the bowman;  he feels that they would survive well as a team – unfortunately, the bowman doesn’t feel the same way; he covets the old man’s transport:  who will survive?

            Tim Winton is an enormously respected Australian novelist – this could be his magnum opus, especially as the theme he tackles affects us all, and no-one could be more adept at describing our headlong rush to wreck the planet than he.  This is the best book I have read this year.  SEVEN STARS.

 

Pãtea Boys, by Airana Ngarewa.                      NZ Fiction

 

          Airana Ngarewa has already made a tremendous impact with his first novel ‘The Bone Tree’, a Take-No-Prisoners exposé of racism, colonialism and every other shameful ‘ism’ that Aotearoa New Zealand is guilty of, but ‘Pãtea Boys’ is different, for he has written about his home and upbringing in a small Taranaki town – chiefly famous for the NZ-wide top hit song ‘Poi E’ (check out YouTube!) performed in the 0ughties by the Pãtea Maori Club -  all the Nannas when they were young and full of rhythm and, with the advent of this wonderful collection of stories Pãtea will once again be rightly famous for producing a son who cherishes his history and community, and writes of it superbly.

            ‘Bombs for the Bros’ concerns Turi, who wants to make the biggest Bomb(splash) in the local pool’s history, gaining the undying respect of all his mates – and the bigger Bros who are his idols.  The way to do that is to launch himself off rails that are higher than anyone has tried before and to do it when the lifeguard is distracted – no easy task because she’s pretty fearsome, but!  He does the business – the biggest bomb ever!  The only problem being that the lifeguard (who is his Nan) saw everything and her rage is incandescent:  he’s barred from the pool FOREVER, and just wait till they get home!  Was it worth it or not?

            Each story illustrates the closeness of a small community and their Marae, and how Maori deal with different aspects of life, especially if they leave, as so many had to, to find work elsewhere – automatically, leavers lose a certain amount of influence if they return home only occasionally, then try to put their opinions forward:  ‘Why’s he putting his oar in?  He’s never here!’  Marae funerals are written of with great affection, too, with enormous respect for all the old people looking down at their descendants from their photos on the walls, and once again Turi features with his little sister, both consigned to the kitchen to help with the funeral feast – because they’re not related to the dead person, so not grieving.  The conversation they have as they work is a demonstration of their affection for each other, and the life they have with their Nan, the strongest wahine they know.

            Airana Ngarewa writes of his home, dominated by Mount Taranaki, his maunga, with great love and respect, and a restless, wonderful energy and humour that would beguile any reader and, for students of Te Reo the stories are contained in Maori in the second half of the book.  CHUR, BRO!  SIX STARS.      

 

 

 

Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout.

 

            Elizabeth Strout’s beloved characters are all lined-up here, again ready to allow us into their lives, feelings and dramas and what a privilege it is to meet them again:  Olive Kitteridge, former maths teacher in Crosby, Maine where she has lived her entire prickly, outspoken life (she is now 90);  Lucy Barton, now a respected novelist who has moved with her ex-husband William to Crosby during the Pandemic ‘to see what happens’ – to see, really, if they can be properly and permanently reconciled after William’s several affairs;  and Bob Burgess, a lawyer returned to his nearby hometown of Shirley Falls with his wife Margaret, a Unitarian Minister.  The scene is set.

            Bob and Lucy are firm friends and go walking by the river each week, rain or shine.  Lucy is privy to the fact that Bob gave up smoking years ago but at a certain place on their usual path, he lights up his verboten ciggy, then has to make sure the wind doesn’t blow the incriminating smoke onto his clothing;  Margaret would be scandalised if she knew of his lapse!  And Lucy finds in Bob the perfect listener as she bounces ideas and opinions off him;  his common-sense logic and practicality is invaluable.        

            From the distance of her retirement home Olive watches and shrewdly evaluates the growing friendship, for Lucy visits her, often with stories of her own to tell, and it’s possible that this story could have turned out differently if a local woman that everyone detested went missing, not to be found until months later submerged in a car at the bottom of a quarry:  her middle-aged reclusive son Matt is the main suspect – he was her caregiver but was also a weirdo, liked to paint pictures of nude pregnant women.  What a pervert!  Until Bob consents to defend him, should the case go to trial, and all the stories start to float up to the surface, Olive remembering many of them.

            ‘Tell Me Everything’ is exactly that, for unburdening themselves eases many heavy hearts in this beautiful little book;  every character has something that they never want to think of again, but are unable to think of anything else.  No-one is exempt from heartache, regardless of how well they pretend.  And I wonder if this is Olive’s last hurrah – her best and only friend at the retirement home seems to be sleeping more and more lately.  Olive’s still wide-awake, but for how long?  I cannot imagine one of Ms Strout’s books without her.  Rock on, Olive, rock on!  FIVE STARS