The Shadow Girl

Author: John Larkin

---

I’ll break some rules here, and review a book that I’m not putting in the library. Don’t get me wrong, it is a book I read to the end with interest, and there is nothing in it that makes it inappropriate for adult readers. The problem I see is that it takes a real issue (and starts with a real story) and puffs it up into a sensationalised drama. Even this is not the heart of the reason I struggle with the book… it is just that it is plainly intended for teen readers.

A bit of context is in order. John Larkin is a prolific teen fiction/ young adult writer. The book was inspired by meeting a girl who told him her story about being a run-away. There is no suggestion however that this is a biography. It is simply a story that starts with the idea of an intelligent girl who runs away from home to escape a predatory uncle/guardian. We are introduced to her through a number of scenes where she describes her life to the author, but segue into first person narration. I find the mechanism a little contrived. In order to tell the story with a sense of development certain details are held back even though we can see the author and the story teller are both aware of the details in the narrative “now”.  I am not adverse to complex narratives (loved All That I Am) but clunkiness is always annoying.

I found myself reeling with the series of tragedies and confrontations the girl has to deal with… not just exposure to a sexual predator, but violence, murder, rape, betrayal and institutional neglect. I am pleased that there are some adults who provide a degree of kindness or even shelter for the girl, so the book is not without its sense of hope. Religion gets some pretty stern serves and the only religious leaders shown are either uncaring or, in one case, sexual predators themselves.

A friend of mine found the book fascinating, and I found it interesting, but showing all the hallmarks of a recent trend to offer teens books with levels of adult themes, sex and violence that not that many years ago would have been questioned in books for adults.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

36 Views of Mount Fuji

Author: Cathy N. Davidson

---

This delightful, autobiographical book leapt out at me from the shelves of the gift shop at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It is a poignant and sometimes funny account of the author’s various stays in Japan, where she worked as an English teacher at a university. While the edition I have was published in 2006, the book was written in 1993, so the Japan we meet is not the 21st century Japan. Having been fascinated by the country, culture and people all my life, I found this book touched on many of the complexities of Japan that I have pondered, and I identified strongly with some of her experiences.

At the same time, this is not simply a travelogue. She describes in painful detail sad events in the lives of some who she got close to in Japan, and also the upheaval and devastation of losing unexpectedly a close family member. The book certainly has some amusing and entertaining travel tales, but also deploys some motifs and images that link different scenes.

This is unlikely to attract younger readers but older teens and adults who are interested in Japan or simply the complex interface between cultures will find this stimulating. Several of her stories refer to blown green glass fishing net floats that she used to collect… and I was moved to find just such a float advertised on the website of a Sydney vendor of all things Japanese the other night.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

All That I Am

Author: Anna Funder

---

I am not personally a fan of historical novels… but this crept up on me as I did not realise that it was! To start with I associate historical novels with books about Anne Boleyn, and this is actually about the “between the wars” period in Germany. In fact while we hear a bit about Hitler and the National Socialist Party, this is the story of some of the key figures in short lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, a left wing government in Germany ousted by Hitler. Those involved were mercilessly hunted by German agents of the Nazis even when they had escaped to England or other countries.

The story is told in a complex way, but I found this attractive, partly because real stories are complex. We hear from two narrators: Ruth and Toller. Ernst Toller was a real figure, a German playwright, a Jew, and for six short days president of the ill-fated Bavarian Soviet Republic. Ruth is the woman to whom the book is dedicated, whose life was closely linked to Toller and to the third key character in this story, Dora Fabian. Dora was an early feminist, a pacifist and anti-Nazi campaigner, who was found dead in her flat in England raising the possibility that she had been murdered by a Nazi agent.

We meet Ruth still living in contemporary Bondi and Toller who lived a distressed life as an emigrant in the US. Toller writes the story of Dora’s life and work. Ruth tells us something of her quiet Sydney existence, but thinks back to the events in Germany and England. While she initially seems on the periphery of the drama, it becomes clear as we go through the book that she is ultimately deeply involved in the drama and tragedy.

This is rich in historical detail while being the story of particular individuals, not the story of an event or epoch. I found it moving and eye opening… details about a time in Germany I was hardly aware of. Recommended for older teens and thoughtful adults. Some of this deals with grim matters, though there are no grotesque or unnecessarily intimate descriptions. Younger readers may struggle with the multiple voices (two voices and at least two levels of flash back) as well as the terrible injustice of both German and English intolerance and anti-Semitism.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre