The Dead I Know

Author: Scot Gardner

---

This book is simultaneously satisfying and disturbing. It touches on death, physical abuse, loneliness, alcoholism and self-doubt, and yet all of these grim themes are set against a sometimes mundane world where at least one family cares for the increasingly desperate Aaron.

Aaron is a teenager who has left school before Year Twelve. He has opted to take a job in a local funeral parlour, and it is here that he must confront death and the discomforting challenges of the trade. Compared to other parts of his life, the small family run business is actually a haven. Aaron struggles with inner and external torment. He has shocking dreams that start to push a door open to something he does not want to remember. He lives with his carer in a caravan park and there attracts the hostility of teenage thugs and a vindictive supervisor.

The story unfolds with a series of ever more intense confrontations and challenges for Aaron. Some of the detail is, I feel, far too gritty for younger readers, but John Barton, the owner of the funeral home, is doing his best to understand Aaron’s defensive secrets and silence, knows things are not going well, and is determined to help if he can.

Aaron is an engaging character, and the reader is likely to be barracking for him right through to the last page. My personal unease was that for the purpose of the story Aaron faces a perfect storm of emotional and physical struggle, so the events are well beyond the sort of thing a normal teen reader may have ever experienced. We accept this in an action story or a sci fi space opera, but this book is seemingly about an ordinary boy in an ordinary suburb.

Emotionally intense and including scenes of murder, physical violence and death. Short listed for this year's CBCA awards.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Fault in Our Stars

Author: John Green

---

I read a book about dying from cancer. I laughed all the way through. I then pondered long and hard as to where I would review this. 350Wordsorless is for books actually inthe Odell Learning Resources Centre library. As you can tell, I’m going to get this book but may display it in my office while I’m thinking through the harder questions. 

I simply wouldn’t bother scratching my head over a poorly written or insignificant book… but this is neither. The story is told by Hazel, a seventeen year old who does not go to college much, and has become fixated on a particular book (an invention of the author) called An Imperial Affliction. Hazel’s life has been somewhat constrained by having serious cancer, so serious that she is permanently on oxygen and, as far as she knows at the start of the book, facing only a limited time left on earth. 

Almost everything that follows is the opposite to the reader’s expectation. Hazel fits no simple stereotypical cancer victim persona. She is feisty, but refuses to be “brave”. Her parents are admirable and understanding, and while she finds them irritating at times she does not hate them. While many of the people you meet in the book also have cancer of various sorts, some very significant people in her life do not. Hazel is not exactly an ordinary teen, despite her “teenspeak” language, and shows a distinctly philosophical bent (in part influenced by the book she can’t stop reading and thinking about). 

Hazel questions much of the conventional “dance” of the cancer patient… doctor’s attitudes, support group platitudes, even her parents insistence that she “gets out more and makes friends”. She does, with unexpected consequences. 

This is not a self help book about coping with cancer. It is a book about friendship, romance and serious relationships, philosophy, death, grief, family and afterlife. While most of it is reasonably realistic, Hazel does encounter at least one larger than life character, but even he is essentially made up of super failings rather than super powers. 

I enjoyed this from cover to cover… so if you are reading this as a parent you will be wondering what could possibly cause me any concern (spoilers follow). Writing: very nicely done, swinging from “teen speak” to philosophy and back. Language: not too bad, mostly restrained. Violence: emotionally tough in parts but no physical violence. Sex: Hazel does go to bed with her boyfriend. It is handled discreetly but there is absolutely no doubt what does happen. Morality and overall hopefulness: this is a book that investigates death from cancer from the eyes of a teenager, and is consequently potentially harrowing for some. It does it (I believe) very well. Family allegiance is celebrated, as is faithfulness to friends and to those you are romantically involve with. Generosity, honesty and a kind of gritty positivity is pushed to the forward. Christianity: some of the Christians in the story are not shown as being especially helpful or responsive to Hazel’s real needs or ideas, on the other hand both sets of parents in the book seem to be church goers and this is not handled negatively. One of the characters believes in life after death (though not necessarily in a straightforward Christian context), another does not. 

So now you know… or at least enough to say “that’s the book for me” or “nah… not so much”. I hope adults do read this book… and I think it will have some positive things to say to teenagers who venture into its pages. Remember how I started? It’s a book about dying from cancer, and I laughed all the way through. 

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Lake of Dreams

Author: Kim Edwards

---

This is rich fare but tasty. We start in Japan (that had me in from page one) as we meet the narrator Lucy Jarrett. She is living there with her partner Yoshi. Gradually themes emerge from her narrative about the details of the day (peppered with earthquake shocks). It becomes clear we are going to be looking at the idea of family relationships, the role of the near and far past in impacting the present, ideas about domesticity and independence, food, fine art and beauty. The book seems initially to be a fairly light read, but partly due to a small font and partly due to the gorgeous descriptive passages it took me longer than expected. 

Lucy journeys back to her home town (by the Lake of Dreams). Nothing is as she remembers it: her mother is falling in love with someone she has met, her uncle seems bent on purchasing pristine lake frontage and commercially developing it, and a former boyfriend is now a much talked about glass blower in the “crafts” section of the town. We walk with Lucy through small events, interactions and discoveries, and gradually the pace and intensity picks up. She becomes intrigued by evidence she discovers of an unknown relative two generations prior, and this becomes the focus of one of the larger story arcs. 

The book is well crafted, with a pacing that ebbs and flows, but I was interested till the conclusion. There are moments of high drama with particular revelations, but it is less about the surprises than gradual uncovering of dimensions in her own past that end up feeding significantly into her present dilemmas. The process of story telling is therefore more like polishing an old vase until you can start to see your own reflection. 

It is unlikely to attract younger teens given the lyrical passages, multi-layered narrative and rich use of interlinked motifs: recommended for older teens and adults. There is certainly reference to adult themes and interactions but little to be uncomfortable about.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

Tinkers

Author: Paul Harding

---

George is not a hero. He lives in a comfortable house, and it would seem has had fulfilling life. He has a loving family, and is surrounded by the evidence of his passion for clocks.

In this densely written book Harding sets out to challenge our assessment of people like George. He certainly does not set out to prove that George is a hero, but does an extraordinary job in showing how rich and complex an ordinary life can be, how deeply connected to others, and fascinating any human would become if we were able to see through their eyes, and listen in to their thoughts.

This is not a simple book, though unlike Andrew Davidson (The Gargoyle) he has not felt the need to immerse the reader in overwhelming details of pain, savagery, mysticism and sex. All of these dimensions are there in the stories we read about George and his father, but we experience the pain all the more poignantly for being vectored in rather than directly immersed.

It is no book to skim read. Large and complex stories are often told in as little as a paragraph or a page, rich with imagery and haunting evocations of other's lives and struggles. The voice and focus flicks between George (who is in the last hours of his life), his family who surround him, and for a good part of the book, an independently told tale about his father.

George's father was a backwoods tinker... who carried a small general store in a carriage from farm to farm and did odd jobs as well. Tragically, he suffered from epilepsy with potentially terrible consequences in an age when this was treated as a form of insanity.

It is not usual for me to finish a relatively small book, set in normal type, less than 200 pages long, and feel as though I have been running in a mental marathon. I will read this again. Once you finish and realise the scope and breadth of the story, you are ready to read again from the start as a more understanding reader. This is suitable for any age but the complex and redolent writing suggests only older teens with some staying power will really enjoy this book.

Andrew Lack