Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Sandi Scaunich, Transit Lounge, $29.99.
Genuine, restrained, redolent and alive. With Melbourne as the backdrop in the 1990s, here is an astute character study of circumstances in which two different people end up helping each other.
Ron, an elderly widower, has health issues who supplements his meagre government benefit by driving around the suburbs hunting for valuables at garage sales or for items left discarded on nature strips as hard rubbish. Joseph, is a shy unemployed 19-year-old who lives in squalid conditions with his unemployed mother; they are facing eviction.
‘Going to garage sales and exploring discarded rubbish is a highly competitive occupation which is sometimes referred to as ‘scrounging.’
Joseph knows nothing about antiques, but slowly begins to appreciate and understand Ron’s world of eccentric bargain hunters. There’s also anticipation, his ability to navigate a history of family violence and there’s a glimmer of a future for himself. Consequently, they both come to share the wild dream of finding a rare bargain such as an original Frederick McCubbin painting and making their fortune. Thus begins an enlivening adventure and an improbable though beautiful friendship.
A chance meeting brings these two people together. The narrative traces their developing relationship as they patrol the suburban streets dreaming of the ultimate find, looking for that elusive valuable or at least a marketable item. In equal parts, Chasing the McCubbin is an amusing, depressing, heartbreaking yet a sanguine novel. It’s a story of not only loneliness, but a timeless desire to belong.
