Mark Brandi

A simple conversational flowing style. A homeless drug addict narrates her story.
It starts off very simply with casual self talk. I wondered if the book was worth persisting with. But then an element of danger is introduced to suck you in.
The colloquial narrative gives you a good picture what it is like being on the street and on drugs. The pearls of street philosophy gives it warmth and depth.
"They're (dogs) probably better at being human than any of us really." p201.
It was worth persisting past the scene setting early dialog.… (mehr)

Two young boys find a dead body in a wheelie bin in the Wimmera River, near the provincial town of Stawell. Mark Brandi's story then pivots to an earlier time where two primary school boys, Ben and outsider Fab are best friends. There are dark undercurrents to this friendship though; Fab's father is a scary, violent man. A neighbour of Ben's asks him to do odd jobs instead of hanging out with Fab, and this starts to drive a wedge between the two friends.

Brandi's debut has been much-praised and won many awards, but it has few surprises. Most readers will guess where this is all heading and there are very few twists in his plot. It's a diverting read, but nothing special.… (mehr)

The Others is a haunting coming-of-age novel from Australian author Mark Brandi.

On his eleventh birthday Jacob’s father gifts him a diary, encouraging his son to write about their life on an isolated farm in rural Tasmania. The boy writes of the sheep they tend, the goats they hunt and eat, the drought that destroys their crops, the foxes that lurk in the hills. Of his dead mother, whom he misses but can’t remember, of the whites of his father’s eyes, of the questions he has about ‘the town’, the plague, and the Others.

Jacob’s voice is captivating, Brandi pitches it perfectly to project the curiosity and innocence of a young boy whose understanding and experience of the world is limited to what his father tells him, supplemented by a dictionary, an incomplete encyclopaedia, and a faded Women’s Weekly magazine.

Jacob is reluctant to ask his father too many questions, wary of his father’s temper or alternatively afraid that the ‘soft eyes’ will return, which means his dad may not talk or move for days. There are subtle clues for the reader that what Jacob’s father tells him about life outside the farm may not be true, small details that the boy doesn’t recognise as incongruous. Tension builds as Jacob’s curiosity grows, and he secretively begins defying his father’s edict to remain within the confines of the farm. Brandi conjures dread and anxiety as a confrontation, either between Jacob and his father or Jacob and the ‘others’, seems inevitable.

The writing is spare, yet evocative, I was clearly able to visualise the farm and it’s immediate surrounds. Some of the graphic scenes in the novel have more impact because the description is so stark. Unexpectedly, the story is also enhanced by small sketches, drawn by Jacob in his diary.

Powerful and unsettling, The Others is a gripping novel with an ending that left my heart pounding.… (mehr)