Themes re Family told though Tas bush, but I didn't like it ( )

A beautiful, magical, lyrical expedition through Robbie Arnott's Tasmania replete with mothers returning from the dead for a few days; a River God in the form of a water rat; a fisherman who bonds with a seal to hunt Oneblood tuna together; a hard-nosed, alcoholic lady detective; and a government-hating, tax-avoiding magical coffin maker among others.

Flames is told from the perspectives of the aforementioned characters (and more). The story mostly, kind of, follows Charlotte who flees her hometown after her mother returns from the dead (as the women in her family have a habit of doing). Her brother, Levi (who is looking to have a special coffin made to avoid this issue for her future) finds she is missing and hires a detective to find her.

This is a story about symbiosis. It is a sumptuous, fantastical tale about the interconnectedness between humans, animals, and nature. It is sometimes brutal, sometimes gentle, always beautiful.

Telling this story, woven with so much magical realism, through so many voices could have been messy, confusing, and trite. I'm overjoyed to say that it was nothing of the sort. Arnott managed once again to captivate me utterly with each and every character and their unique voices.

If you're willing to let go of the known, suspend disbelief, and let yourself be carried away on waves of resplendent prose, then please pick up this book. ( )

A magnificent debut novel in which the joining of reality and fantasy is seamless. It is the story of a family’s response to a death of Edith McAllister. Her son’s response is to build a coffin for his sister, Charlotte. Her response is to flee as far as she can. He hires a private detective, a woman who has an unhealthy fondness for gin.

There are many layers to this novel that's short in length and long on substance. I read it in two sittings. It's about love, familial relationships, and the power of animals and nature. 


Robbie Arnott lives in Australia’s island state of Tasmania, the novel’s setting and where I live. His portrayal of the countryside and its people adds to the novel’s realism. But parts of the story are unreal. A thread of magic is woven into the novel’s fabric. It is seamless, as is the telling of the story from different points of view and moving from the present to the past and back again.

It is a literary novel that’s part love story, part thriller, part fantasy. This novel was outside my usual reading fare. If it is for you too, I urge you to get out of your comfort zone, you’ll be the richer for it. ( )

I have words, as the saying goes; lots of them. Here are a few.

This lovely debut novel from a small-yet-mighty Australian publishing house was a delight to me from the moment I met Karl and his seal. Karl fishes off the northern coast of Tasmania, that deep-southern island state of Australia, the last significant spot of land between Antarctica and the world. His seal, like Lyra's daemon in His Dark Materials, is connected to Karl's very essence and forms a large part of Karl's self—both image and awareness. Their "Oneblood tuna" prey, the giant and preternaturally perfect piscine predators found only in the Bass Strait (this is never stated but is implicit in the constant Japanese tuna-buyers' presence), bring in huge amounts of money from sushi-mad Japanese consumers through their local Tasmanian agents. Karl supports his family, his seal included, on the proceeds of their hunts. His bond with his seal is, however, the source of his undoing. His seal, being but a seal, is not immortal and falls to a hungry orca before Karl's appalled and helpless eyes and ears:

Karl tried to forget that clicking sound. But it was lodged in a hole between his ears, a backdrop to his days that he feared and hated but could not escape. He was reminded of it constantly: when a light switch was flicked, when Louise clicked her fingers, when his leaping daughters clicked their heels, when Sharon at the fish-and-chip shop clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she waited for the oil in the deep fryer to heat up.

There is no magical cure here. Not even for the cruel soulkiller PTSD.

Much more on my blog, 20 October 2019. ( )

I didn't really connect with the magical realist style, perhaps because I know nothing about Tasmania. ( )