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I went to the launch by Carol Lefevre of Jean Harley was here last night at Dymocks bookshop.
This is Heather Taylor Johnson’s second novel, Pursuing Love and Death her first published in 2013 by Harper Collins, a domestically rich story with the protagonist suffering from Meniere’s disease, a debilitating condition of the inner ear causing vertigo and tinnitus, which Heather herself battles with. So Heather’s second novel has been hotly anticipated.
Published by the University of Queensland Press, it explores love, relationships and the impact of absence. Jean Harley – wife, mother, lover, dancer – is sunshine in the lives of those around her, but when tragedy strikes they are forced to continue without her. Despite a little unravelling and a few storms, Jean leaves a powerful legacy to abate them. I’ve heard it’s a tear-jerker
Heather is first and foremost a poet, with a number of sole and collaborative collections to her name, and her lyricism is reflected in her exquisite prose. I recall Heather sharing an extract from the draft of this book last year at a reading with other poets, which has stayed with me, and Heather’s knack for scene-setting is like an intimacy shared, demonstrated by the excerpt she read yesterday from the chapter “Emotional Fishing”. Here’s a snapshot:
Charley sat as far back as he could, feeling out of place, though that was nothing new. His bald head shone under the fluoro lights and the back of his neck itched – an eczema problem that flared up when he was nervous. He kept smoothing his long beard to a point – another nervous tic. One might think he was made of tougher stuff because if this was an eye-for-eye world, here was a man who’d seen things that should’ve blinded him, a man who’d done the sort of things people don’t talk about at the dinner table but read about in newspapers over breakfast…”
Quoted as being “a book to savour” by Hannah Kent, it’s clear this will be another stunning read from an extraordinarily talented writer. A visceral narrative with complex, relatable characters, Heather offers us a world to get lost in, absorb, making us ponder our place in our own.
Tuesday saw words with Caitlyn Lesiuk, David Mortimer, Mike Ladd and Carol Lefevre at the Lee Marvin readings hosted by Ken Bolton, a delightful variety and evening.
Caitlyn was first up reading a piece of prose, which although based in Melbourne felt like we were being drawn into some kind of Salvador Dali-esque world, with striking images of birthing body parts! An eye, foot, hand pushing their way out of women, such powerful images leading up to the protagonist being hit by a tram but the legs ‘kept on walking’. At the end, despite the almost surreal horror, you wanted more, so hopefully at some point there will be.
David read eight poems, six of which were new and then two from his collection Magic Logic published by Puncher & Wattmann Poetry, one entitled ‘not-being and somethingness’, a nice fit with the evening’s theme. David ended with ‘practical aesthetics’, a sex poem as he calls it, which opened with the beautiful line ‘I kiss your intimate architecture’ and developed into an exquisite abstract of lovemaking.
Mike read a new series of poems called ‘Dream tetras’, which in part relayed colours remembered after waking. These were interesting, thought-provoking pieces and Mike is a wonderful reader, having heard him before at a Words@Wall event reading from his Adelaide collection produced by Garron Publishing. Mike ended his set with a poem about skiing in Dubai, an entertaining piece with the repetitive line ‘so let’s go skiing in Dubai’ throughout.
Carol shared a series of work about her garden, a photographic journal called The Art of the Garden Diary published in SA Life, making reference at one point to Wallace Stevens’ poem ‘Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird’, which I must admit I had never read before (I have now!). With memorable lines like ‘night swallows the deepest colours first’ and vivid images of roses, Carol encouraged us to remember the natural world we live in and must keep alive.
J V Birch 