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A review by archytas
The Best Australian Stories 2017 by Maxine Beneba Clarke
4.0
New resolution to read this compilation every year: the best of the stories are either achingly or slammingly good; and the proportion that speak to me is high enough to return. Scattered thoughts because that's all I've got energy for today:
* More than a third of the stories take a child's perspective to reflect on trauma, or just a slice of Australian culture. It's a really effective technique, but by the end of the compilation I was a bit over it. It's actually quite difficult to capture a child's voice well, which is probably why it is more often attempted in short than long form, and most of the time the point is to allow the author inside knowledge not available to the protagonist, due to an absence of life experience;
* Having said that, Madeline Bailey's "The Encylopedia of Wild Things" was a stand out for me in feeling like it was, in fact, a way in to a child's viewpoint;
* The two biggest stand-outs in my read were Melissa Lucashenko's "Dreamers" and Verity Borthwick's "Barren Ground". (I'd read Josephine Rowe's "Glisk" when it debuted in ABR, or it might have joined them). Lucashenko is solidifying as one of my favourite authors of the moment (with a book due this year!), and this tale managed a huge punch without for one second feeling contrived. Borthwick's Barren Ground was breathtaking in the depth with which she managed, in a story strongly constrained to a single decision, held to over a brief but interminable journey. I'm keen to see what she does next.
* I had been toying with buying Ryan O'Neill's prize winning novel/faux history/whatever as on paper it looked like something I'd love. I'm glad I didn't because I absolutely *hated* "Polly Stepford" (A set of recycled stereotypes, depressingly close to truth, but with neither the vitality nor the point of the actual truth). So, good to know it isn't for me.
* Also really enjoyed Tony Birch's "Sissy" and Joe Rubbo's "Trampoline". I don't have the patience/interest in gritty procedural to persist with Birch's crime fiction, so it was to remember how good a writer he is; and Rubbo's was one that more successfully captured a young voice.
* "Perry Feral" by Allee Richards got right under my skin. I hated the reading experience, while acknowledging how good the writing must have been to me in that state. Still not sure what was being triggered there.
*Even in a short, straightforward intro Beneba Clarke is fabulous. She loves words and they love her right back in turn.
* More than a third of the stories take a child's perspective to reflect on trauma, or just a slice of Australian culture. It's a really effective technique, but by the end of the compilation I was a bit over it. It's actually quite difficult to capture a child's voice well, which is probably why it is more often attempted in short than long form, and most of the time the point is to allow the author inside knowledge not available to the protagonist, due to an absence of life experience;
* Having said that, Madeline Bailey's "The Encylopedia of Wild Things" was a stand out for me in feeling like it was, in fact, a way in to a child's viewpoint;
* The two biggest stand-outs in my read were Melissa Lucashenko's "Dreamers" and Verity Borthwick's "Barren Ground". (I'd read Josephine Rowe's "Glisk" when it debuted in ABR, or it might have joined them). Lucashenko is solidifying as one of my favourite authors of the moment (with a book due this year!), and this tale managed a huge punch without for one second feeling contrived. Borthwick's Barren Ground was breathtaking in the depth with which she managed, in a story strongly constrained to a single decision, held to over a brief but interminable journey. I'm keen to see what she does next.
* I had been toying with buying Ryan O'Neill's prize winning novel/faux history/whatever as on paper it looked like something I'd love. I'm glad I didn't because I absolutely *hated* "Polly Stepford" (A set of recycled stereotypes, depressingly close to truth, but with neither the vitality nor the point of the actual truth). So, good to know it isn't for me.
* Also really enjoyed Tony Birch's "Sissy" and Joe Rubbo's "Trampoline". I don't have the patience/interest in gritty procedural to persist with Birch's crime fiction, so it was to remember how good a writer he is; and Rubbo's was one that more successfully captured a young voice.
* "Perry Feral" by Allee Richards got right under my skin. I hated the reading experience, while acknowledging how good the writing must have been to me in that state. Still not sure what was being triggered there.
*Even in a short, straightforward intro Beneba Clarke is fabulous. She loves words and they love her right back in turn.