Louise Allan

Meh. Almost gave up at times, but the underlying story kept me reading. I'm interested in how people deal with their failures, and there are plenty in this novel - failure to prevent unwanted pregnancy being a major one. This is historical fiction - written of an era before the contraceptive pill, before television, before widespread telephones and located in a rather quiet and isolated part of Australia. None of the characters was particularly attractive to me and the story gave very little optimism about how to deal with mistakes and failures. I don't mind bleakness and darkness, but I don't think Louise Allan's writing has any particular strength to get the best out of a fundamentally interesting plot. This book was a "Librarian's Choice" , but I don't think that says anything positive about either the book or the librarians that chose it.… (mehr)

The Sisters’ Song is the debut novel of WA author Louise Allen, who blogs at Louise Allen and also hosts a popular series called Writers in the Attic. I’ve been following her for a while now, so I was very pleased to see her novel finally make it into print.
It’s historical fiction, but of the near past, starting in the 1920s in Tasmania, and spanning seventy years. It tells of a very different and much harsher world, when social and religious rigidity compromised people’s lives with devastating effect. Nora and Ida lose their father to stomach cancer when they are still just small children, and their mother doesn’t cope. The inadequacy of mental health services is also a strand in the novel, showing the misery that occurred because people were expected just to get on with things without the kinds of counselling and support available today.
So as well as being deprived of a father, the girls are also subjected to their mother’s erratic moods and cruelties. They end up living with their grandmother but their young lives are blighted by fear of their mother and her moods. And because Nora seems to have been favoured with the looks, the talent and the approval and admiration of the adults, Ida finds it hard to reconcile love for her sister with the jealousy she feels. It becomes even more difficult when Nora, who wants to have a musical career, ends up isolated in the Tasmanian bush by an early marriage and three unwanted children – while Ida in Hobart would love to have a family, but finds that she can’t bring a baby to term. The grief this causes lasts her lifetime, as I know from friends, it does, and it can be triggered at any time by events that seem insignificant to others.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/01/23/the-sisters-song-by-louise-allan/… (mehr)