Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By James Cristina, Transit Lounge Publishing, $29.99.
Daring in its design, this is a story where role reversal is common. Here the writer becomes the subject, the hunter becomes the hunted, and vice versa.
It’s the ‘90s and the interlaced storylines are intriguing. Silvio Portelli returns to Melbourne after time spent teaching in England and rents a room from the charismatic octogenarian, Nancy Triganza. Nancy is having an elaborate aviary constructed to indulge her passion for birds. At a city sex shop, Silvio meets the mysterious Zlatko, a Bosnian immigrant and, in a previous life, a collector of rare birds.
Silvio becomes obsessed with Zlatko, and his own journal and dreams begin to mirror Zlatko’s past, and in time the reality of what happened in Bosnia. Such revelations are counterpointed by Silvio’s own tense wait to learn the results of his tests for HIV.
On their multiple rides, the characters slither into other names and ethnicities, but the journey with which the primary narrator, Silvio, is most preoccupied is the move away from an ending.
Writing is the remedy to keep the test results at bay and a safeguard against the medical verdict.
This novel by Melbourne author is a perceptive scrutiny of the nature of identity. It is an intellectual and provoking inquiry into the disposition of narrative itself. It also takes a probe into the inspired process, in particular, especially the challenging relationship between ‘art and atrocity’.
Rich with images and allusions yet grounded in the everyday, Antidote to a Curse is a startling debut. Cristina subtly draws the reader deeper and deeper into a state of psychological obsession where only the truth can provide a way out.
