Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Victoria Hannan, Hachette, $32.99.
In Kokomo, love is complex, fearsome and elusive.
The introduction is anything but expected. Mina declares she has found love:
“Love is being turned inside out together, all that pink splayed and splayed, everything on show for one another.”
“… She knew that showing love is letting someone inside you or being let inside someone. Inside and outside, in love and out of love…” The epiphany comes during a few critical moments.
When Mina receives an urgent call from her best friend back in Melbourne, her world is turned upside down. Her reclusive mother, Elaine, has left the house for the first time in 12 years.
Dropping everything to fly home, Mina discovers that Elaine will not talk about her sudden return to the world, nor why she’s spent so much time hiding from it. Their reunion leaves Mina raking through pieces of their painful past in a bid to uncover the truth.
Kokomo is a story about how secrets and love have the power to bring us together and tear us apart. It’s gentle and intense, distressing and humorous. It centres on the story of a mother and daughter ensnared in a cycle of sorrow and unsuccessful communication.
Structured in two parts, with the first told through Mina’s perspective and the second through Elaine’s, the reader gradually gets given small pieces to solve the puzzle of their relationship, and the mysterious cause of Elaine’s agoraphobia. A Chinese-Australian family has lived across the road from Elaine since before Mina was born, exercising more influence in Mina’s life than she has ever realised.
Hannan’s writing style can be confronting. She has the capacity to concurrently unsettle you and draw you in through an intriguing approach by using odd images to disrupt the flow and jolt the reader out of complacency.
Described as a “stunning debut novel” from the winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript … “It does not disappoint”.
