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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

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Growing pains: The Choke & He Is Mine and I Have No Other

20/3/2019

5 Comments

 
Two novels about girls in the painful process of growing up. For Australian Justine, in the first novel, adolescence merely exacerbates a lifetime of neglect; for Irish Lani, in the second, it’s the begins of psychological separation from her family as she falls for a local boy.

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The Choke by Sofie Laguna

Justine lives with her grandfather in the Australian outback, playing rough-and-tumble games and making dens near the choke, the narrowest part of the Murray River. The natural beauty of the landscape stands in stark contrast to the material and psychological poverty of her circumstances, which are even worse than those of her slightly older half-brothers who visit now and then.
 
Told she was born breech, Justine feels responsible for her mother’s split when she was three, and virtually everything else that’s gone wrong in her life. Mentally scarred by his time as a slave on the death railway through what is now Thailand (the novel opens in 1973), Pop talks more to his chickens than he does to Justine and ventures into town only to replenish his stocks of beer. Although neglectful, and with his own history of violence against women, he’s a marginally safer parental figure than Justine’s dad would be: months will pass between visits (which she and the boys anticipate with a hunger only abandoned children really know) and, when he’s there, he’s likely to land in trouble whether or not he has the kids in tow.
 
As the novel begins when Justine is in primary school, we might hope she’d get a better deal there. But if the teachers don’t notice a boy with cerebral palsy, they’re unlikely to pay much attention to a quiet girl like Justine. She’s not good with words, written even more than verbal, so hasn’t a name for her condition, nor the benefit of an adult with the skill and patience to teach her to read.
 
Sofie Laguna perfectly captures the poignancy of Justine’s situation without being mawkish, or compromising the harsh reality. Although it isn’t completely bleak, even the good things don’t last. Aunt Rita, although she lives in faraway Sydney, would like more involvement with Justine but, due to his homophobia, Pop won’t have her in the house. Her developing friendship with Michael, the boy with cerebral palsy, and her acceptance by his straightforward middle-class family, enriches both outsiders, until the family moves away.
 
Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better, and that’s certainly the case for Justine, as puberty and high school loom. Although I wasn’t completely convinced by the resolution, it’s sensitively handled, as is the novel as a whole. Nominated for several awards on its publication in Australia in 2017, I received my copy from British publishers, Aardvark Bureau, to whom thanks for a great read.


He Is Mine and I Have No Other by Rebecca O’Connor

In 1990s smalltown Ireland, Lani is smitten by a boy she sees hanging around the cemetery near her home. Will he be at the school disco and, more to the point, can she catch him for a slow dance? Will her parents even let her go?
 
As her parents anticipate the birth of a late second child, Lani thinks about the dead. Not only her soon-to-be-boyfriend’s mother, but the thirty-five orphaned girls buried in an unmarked grave nearby. Life was harsh in the industrial schools, financed by the state but run by the church, as Lani knows, from the book written by her aunt in England, who was herself given up for adoption and whom Lani has never met.
 
Poet Rebecca O’Connor’s fiction debut would make a lovely YA novel, but the adult reader might want a little more. Lani seems young for fifteen and it’s hard to get excited about a teenage romance, especially when part of the appeal is the love-object’s psychic wounds. While the historic abuse of the vulnerable in Catholic Ireland merits repeated airing, the pen-portraits of the orphaned girls that punctuate the text don’t add much more than we already know although, extended, this strand might have made the better novel.
 
Nevertheless it’s an easy and undemanding read described as brilliant, vivid, haunting and amazing by various eminent writers. Thanks to Canongate for my review copy.
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If you’re interested in coming-of-age stories, you might enjoy my novel, Sugar and Snails. Click on the image for more information.


Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
5 Comments
Norah Colvin link
24/3/2019 10:09:57 am

The Choke sounds interesting, Anne, and I'm surprised, though shouldn't be, that I hear of it from you. I guess I take more notice of children's authors than adult's authors at the moment. It sounds like Justine may have a little in common with my Marnie. She is a perfect study for you with your interest in abandonment and neglect. Your review of He is Mine ... doesn't entice me to read, though I can see how others may enjoy it.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
25/3/2019 08:05:09 am

You read it here first! I think Sofie Laguna has written for children, although older than the age you specialise in. Poor Justine has had it tough, as you say, like Marnie.

Reply
Charli Mills
26/3/2019 09:55:30 pm

Norah, I was thinking of your character Marnie and her story, too!

Reply
Charli Mills
26/3/2019 09:59:23 pm

Did you find Justine's story to read like a hero's journey? Perhaps that was the dissatisfying ending. ;-) When you wrote, "Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better..." I immediately thought of the cave. It sounds like a tough time for the character, though and yet I like the idea that she found beauty near the choke. The other book takes on hard social issues, perhaps dealing with them in a gentle way is needed for some who are still healing or coming to grips.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
27/3/2019 09:39:54 am

It’s interesting that I didn’t think of the hero’s journey while reading this novel, despite becoming increasingly persuaded of the structure. For me, the resolution was too hopeful in the light of Justine’s terrible disadvantages. I don’t think the author necessarily glossed over these, but it seemed she was inviting the reader to assume more redemption whereas I foresaw more problems.

Fair point re the other novel that some readers might need a gentle introduction to the issues.

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