A Beautiful Family (Jennifer Trevelyan, A&U)

The narrator of Jennifer Trevelyan’s debut, A Beautiful Family, is 10-year-old Alix, a likeable and perceptive child. When her family arrive at their summer holiday house, she and her new friend Kahu decide to investigate the murder of a young girl. This taut tale of mystery and suspense follows Alix as she begins to understand that some actions can have dire consequences. She quickly perceives the tensions in her family: her sister is rebellious, hostile and hypercritical; her mother takes long, solitary walks; and her father seems disinterested in everything around him. Alix’s childhood innocence is gradually punctured by the realisation that her beautiful family is far more vulnerable and fragile than she imagined. The novel’s power lies in its slow reveal. As Alix begins to understand the dark forces pulling her family apart, the reader is tethered to her limited perspective, heightening the sense of unease as we perceive risks that she cannot yet fully comprehend. The ending is both satisfying and unsettling. While all the questions are answered, Alix lacks the maturity and opportunity to share the truth with her disconnected family, so it remains hers alone. Like Sophie Laguna’s child narrator in the equally powerful The Choke, Trevelyan convincingly portrays how a perceptive yet lonely child can make sense of and come to terms with painful and threatening experiences that remain invisible to the adults around them.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Katy Briggs is a marketer with a degree in English and history. She is an avid reader across myriad genres. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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