Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Philip Salom, Transit Lounge, $29.99.
Praise for Salom’s writing is warranted as he is a keen observer of the human condition. It was delightful in its capacity to captivate with the commonplace.
The Miles Franklin finalist has the ability to portray the innermost status of his characters with compassion and perception.
It’s a moving, but positive novel, even though the past keeps recurring in the most unexpected ways.
The way Salom interprets what he and his characters observe onto the page is interesting. The Returns is a story about the eccentricities, failings and small triumphs that humans are capable of, a novel that pokes fun at literary and artistic pretensions while celebrating the expansiveness of art, kindness and friendship.
Elizabeth posts a ‘room for rent’ notice in Trevor’s bookshop and is caught off-guard when Trevor answers the advertisement himself. She expected a young student, not a middle-aged bookseller whose marriage had fallen apart.
Trevor is attracted to Elizabeth’s house because of the empty shed in her backyard, the perfect space for him to revive the artistic career he abandoned years earlier. Elizabeth is a solitary and feisty book editor, and she accepts him, on probation.
Elizabeth is at the beck and call of her ageing mother, and the associated memories of her childhood in a Rajneesh community.
Trevor’s Polish father disappeared when Trevor was 15, and his mother died not knowing whether he was dead or alive. The authorities declared him dead, but is that the case?
