Wildflowers (Peggy Frew, A&U)

When we first meet 37-year-old Nina Atkins, the protagonist of Peggy Frew’s Wildflowers, she’s going through a strange time: she’s packing all her possessions into boxes, stealing clothes from the local charity bin and eating leftover food from other people’s plates in her workplace cafeteria. Rewind five years, and we discover the source of her troubles: an emotionally bruising intervention that Nina and her older sister, Meg, staged for their drug-addicted younger sibling, Amber, at a remote property in Far North Queensland. Told from Nina’s perspective—the wistful, forgetful middle child whose long-held instinct to avoid the trauma that besets her family finally undoes the tenuous order of her life—Wildflowers weaves the story of the intervention with scenes from the sisters’ shared past. As wild, charismatic Amber—who once seemed set for fame and fortune thanks to her precocious acting talent—begins to experiment with narcotics as a teenager, the consequences of her growing drug dependence ripple outwards to disrupt the lives of everyone in the Atkins household. Despite its weighty themes of addiction, family relationships and the limits and disappointments of love, Wildflowers is buoyed by Frew’s droll observations and deep compassion for her characters. This is an excellent book club pick and an ideal recommendation for readers who enjoy the work of writers such as Charlotte Wood, Cate Kennedy and the late Georgia Blain.

Carody Culver is the editor of Griffith Review.

Category: Reviews