Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Wendy Scarfe, Wakefield Press, $24.95.
Told against the political turmoil of World War I, here’s a tale of a disordered family as told from the viewpoint of Matthew Donohue, a nine-year-old. He adopts a naive approach to his narrative.
It’s a susceptible family unit with a dying man, two women and a child. We meet Margaret, Matthew’s mother, who is self-centered and is inept at dealing with life’s challenges; Sarah, his grandmother, is resolute and intellectual; and one can’t escape the dark and angry sense that emanates from his father, who is dying of tuberculosis.
A sensitive boy, Matthew’s beloved Gran is the dependable nucleus of his life. The aura of innocence in this slim novella is what makes the dismay of what’s about to happen more confronting.
It is 1916. The Australian community is split over a referendum to conscript more troops for the killing fields of Europe. Matthew’s family reflects on the social conflict while being ‘divided politically and sinking into poverty’.
At the centre of the family friction is handsome and big-hearted Edward Kingsley. ‘Gran hates the war as Edward does, Mother flirts with him to escape the misery of her marriage, and young Matthew adores him.’
‘As patriotic frenzy takes hold, police informers spy on Edward and track his anti-conscription activities. Sabotage and anarchism are meaningless words to Matthew. Absorbed in childhood fantasies, he is unaware that he, too, is helping draw the net around Edward. It is left to Matthew’s German headmaster to teach him that, ‘like music, people grow with love’.
Scarfe is regarded as ‘an important and innovative contemporary author’ whose books offer a ‘difference’. Her interest in history, political conflicts and social injustice reflects admirably.
Wendy acknowledges that it was her father who shared “his vivid memories of growing up in Adelaide during World War I”.
