Author: Sue Hall Pyke

Precise language speaks to the heart, a Romanian woman looks over her shoulder as the hand of conformity tightens around her neck. She chokes, ‘other people manage to clap along and make money’ her hands remain clenched in her bitter fists (69).

Sometimes just three sentences can make a story an anthem.  ‘Two hundred years! It’s like thinking you own a mountain because you happen to glance at it in passing one afternoon. In a flash of blinding light the settlers are disintegrated’ (17-18).

Ghosts don’t get more convincing or scary than this twin possession. Who hasn’t seen ‘shadows dancing in a corner … as shadows tend to do’ (126)? Nothing to see, settle down neck hairs, it’s you,  ‘she doesn’t have to be there’ (1,026).

How quickly a new normal can overtake the fear of losing peace. In the shadow of Gaza the rapidity with which surveillance shifts to panic, rioting, homelessness, death. All the costs of war. Clutch your pearls as you read this, white woman.

Known facts hidden in full view, this deep research centres on a villain pathological enough to make a reader think not-me until the shock of his freedom sinks in. Historical records as curated fragments, an art as polished as a memorial statue.

Reading this book, vital in these times, the spin of its truths. Not a book to hurry and a book to return to, over and over. All those voices. ‘You just had to be able to hear them’ (126). And then listen.

Allowances for vulnerability, age, a virus, shared animality, all tender under the skin, all drawn large in the glory of a bird caged in a cage in a cage of a drawn jungle, stealing the show where veganism is normalcy not madness.

Inclining ‘to forget what we’ve said or done in the past’ to dodge ‘the obligation to remain faithful’ to such declarations (47). Or writing towards truths, including the difficulty in understanding ‘what is kindness and what is ruthlessness’ in our lives (131).

A barrage of story worlds crowned by King. A gnarl of a roo watching a rival ‘perfuming the whole paddock’ (235). Death ready, catching him, he will fall and fight to become more, together with kin. Politics of all that is animal.