Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Kirsten Krauth, Transit Lounge, $29.99.
Shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize, Almost A Mirror is about what we make of memories and what they make of us. What shape us are the people and places we have lost.
Saturated in the music of the 1980s, this story of love and sorrow, of recollection and musical influences also highlights the healing power of creativity and the everyday sacredness of family and friendship.
Author and arts journalist, Krauth admits to having always been a ‘80s tragic. “I wasn’t old enough to experience the crazy energy of the Ballroom scene, where the likes of New Order and The Cure could be seen alongside punk and post-punk bands, but I was a religious watcher of Countdown from when I was four…”
She writes chapters that revolve around a particular song, “looking at the connections between music and memory”. The first chapter was ‘Change in Mood’ and from that song, her “central character Mona emerged, a teenager, naked, being photographed in a studio. She moves out of the frame and guides the narrative. From then, each chapter responded to the mood, lyrics, video clip and melody of an ‘80s song”.
Mona, Benny and Jimmy are drawn like lightning bugs to the light into the elegantly wasted orbit of the Crystal Ballroom and the post-punk scene of ‘80s Melbourne, a world that includes Nick Cave and Dodge, a photographer pushing his art to the edge.
With exactness and depth Kirsten hauntingly evokes the power of music to infuse our lives, while diving deep into loss, beauty, innocence and agency.
“I thought a great deal about the healing power of music and writing, and about how sometimes it takes being completely vulnerable, stripped bare, to produce your best work.”
As it moves between the Blue Mountains and Melbourne, Sydney and Castlemaine, Almost A Mirror reflects on the healing power of creativity and the everyday sacredness of family and friendship in the face of unexpected tragedy. Memories that are both bitter and sweet, Krauth looks at how art can be used as a way to deal with unexpected grief and the ways in which we express tenderness through a lifetime.
What program did the author religiously watch from the age of four? If your answer is correct, then you could win one of two copies of Almost A Mirror. Entries should be sent to [email protected] by Monday, 27 July 2020. Names of the winners will be announced in Frank Cassidy’s PS-sssst…! column on 28 July 2020.
