Montebello: A Memoir (Robert Drewe, Viking)

I’ve always liked Robert Drewe’s writing. He writes with humility and clarity, in spare, uncomplicated prose, with a storyteller’s gift in short and long fiction, essay and memoir. Montebello is by way of a sequel to Shark Net, bound by memory and subject to Drewe’s Perth upbringing and his obsession with water and the coast. Montebello is an island chain off the Pilbara, and Drewe is spending several weeks with some environmental scientists assessing its health, some 60 years after British atomic tests reduced it to ground zero. The experience provides a platform for reflection on life past, life present, and for the rich fund of stories that arise out of the life experience of seven decades. Wit and self-deprecatory humour work well with a prodigious memory for detail, and for the essential, lasting significance of key events in life. His passion for islands, and preoccupation with the power of nature to act as it pleases (the shark net of his early life didn’t protect his world, and, decades later, he reflects on the prolific shark attacks at his beloved Cottesloe beach) knit the stories of past and present, with a tender, respectful air. It’s a moving, reflective memoir.

David Gaunt is the co-owner of Gleebooks in Sydney

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Category: Reviews