Elemental (Amanda Curtin, UWA Publishing)

Elemental continues Amanda Curtin’s fruitful fascination with memory, history and the generational legacies of family, following her debut novel The Sinkings and her collection of short stories Inherited. The bulk of her new novel consists of the diary of Meggie, an ageing WA-based Scottish expat who, in 1975, sets about chronicling her tragedy-filled youth for the benefit of her granddaughter Laura. With grace, Meggie recounts the oppressive mores of her provincial north-east Scottish hometown: her time as a ‘fisher girl’ gutting fish beside her beloved older sister, falling in love with a handsome young boy, the couple’s eventual emigration to Fremantle, the toll on young families of World War I and more—with a troubling family secret all the while needling at the edge of her reflections. In its final third the novel switches to third-person to detail a difficult episode in the adult Laura’s life, which echoes Meggie’s own story. This is where the confessional conceit of the book’s first section pays off; at times, however, Curtin’s writing felt hemmed in by her choice of format—she’s a writer at her most perspicacious and pleasurable when she’s not constrained to a single subjective voice. Nevertheless, this is another moving novel from a unique Australian fiction writer. 

Gerard Elson is a freelance writer who works at Readings St Kilda

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews