The Break

by Deb Fitzpatrick

The southwest coast of Australia is the kind of place people escape to. Unless you have lived there all your life, in which case, you long to get away. Rosie and Cray chuck in their city jobs for Margaret River while Liza, Ferg, and Sam have been there forever, working the family farm. Under pressure from developers the families unite against change. But when a natural disaster strikes, change is inevitable.

Genres: Australia, Young Adult, Fiction

245 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Deb Fitzpatrick lives and works in Fremantle. A freelance editor and writer, her manuscript Starfish was shortlisted for the 2007 TAG Hungerford Award. She wrote 90 packets of instant noodles while living in a shack in the cloud forest of Costa Rica. She has a Master of Arts (Creative Writing) from UWA.

Reviews

[Sam Still Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Break is a quiet, slim book that sneaks up on you and leaves a lasting impression. Reminiscent of the type of cynical love Tim Winton has for Western Australia with similar biting, observant prose, this story looks at the positive and negative aspects of big city living versus life in a small community. It’s a novel with an ensemble of main characters, rather than just one. Two couples are chosen for their differences and the reader follows them as two sets of lives entwine in a way nobody thought would happen.

We first meet Rosie, a disillusioned reporter. One day it’s all too much and she chucks it in. Her partner, Cray, is the same. He’s a FIFO (fly in, fly out worker) for a mine and his longed for promotion is now a step sideways working with people he hates. The couple decide to make a sea change and move from Fremantle down south to Margaret River (translation if you’re not a local – move from the city to the country). Margies has surf, wine, cheese, chocolate and a more relaxed lifestyle – or so they think.

Liza and Ferg have lived on a farm (originally cattle, now trees) just outside Margaret River all their lives. They’re used to the small town feel, of everyone knowing their business. Still, things are not too good between the couple (as Sam, their son says, ‘he gets a funny tingling in his bum’) and there are issues with Ferg’s brother Mike and how he’s treated the family. Now Mike wants to live with them again, which Liza and Ferg have reservations about. Sam, he’s just happy that Mike can help him with his computer.

It takes some time for Rosie and Cray to adjust to life down south, but when a potential development threatens the local community, they meet Sam, Ferg and Liza and form bonds. However, there’s something more worrying on the horizon…

I did enjoy The Break – it made me remember how much Aussie slang I’ve forgotten or simply don’t use in this age of international communication at the click of a mouse or touch of a finger. It has a true blue (real) Aussie ring (sound) to it and made me hanker for times that are simpler. (It’s not just that the book is set some time ago, when dial up internet, Netscape and those coloured Macs were all the rage). However, sometimes the narrative sounded more summarised rather than fleshed out. I would have loved to see more of the development of the friendship between the two couples as they seem to go from casual friends to close friends quite quickly. On the other hand, I don’t think the event that was life changing would have been as powerful if we knew all there was to know about the characters.

I must commend Deb Fitzpatrick on the way she handled the tragic event of The Break, which is based on a real event that happened in the area. It was handled with sensitivity and care and reflected the anguish and devastation that occurred. It also reflects the pain and uselessness felt by those involved. The aftermath was beautifully handled and gives a spark of hope.

I enjoyed the themes of dissatisfaction with the rat race/your lot and feeling a fish out of water in a new area. Fitzpatrick nailed the sense of isolation and being an outsider that is common to Aussie country towns. I would have liked to have read more about Mike’s addiction, but I think the lack of detail helped to make his character more of the unpredictable enigma that the others think he is.

A beautifully written story that is unsettling yet celebrates life.

Thank you to Fremantle Press and The Reading Room for the copy of this book.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com

[Bree T · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rosie is in her early 20’s and working as a journalist in Perth but she’s feeling a bit jaded and her ambulance-chasing editor has her out covering things she’d prefer were left alone. After refusing to cover a particular story, Rosie ends up quitting. Then her boyfriend, FIFO worker Cray throws in his job too after being overlooked for a promotion. They decide to move down the south-west coast of Western Australia to the Margaret River area, a place where they can relax. Rent is cheap, they have some savings and Cray can spend more time surfing his beloved waves.

Not far from Rosie and Cray’s new place, Ferg lives on the family farm with his wife Liza and son Sam as well as with his mother. He took over when his father died but it’s been a life of sacrifice and Ferg has had a long time to reflect on the ones he has had to make, particularly because of his troubled brother. But he dotes on his son and his son loves the land and the farm with a passion and their lives are happy….until he learns that after many years away, his brother wants to return to the area to live.

Their seaside sanctuary is also under threat from developers. Rosie and Liza meet at a community meeting protesting the proposed development as they try to come up with a plan of action. But it turns out that the man made threat isn’t the biggest thing they are about to face. Instead, it’s mother nature and a powerful disaster that will change the small town’s outlook forever.

When I read this book, it really struck me as two separate stories. There’s the story of Rosie and Cray and their decision to quit their respective jobs and undergo a bit of a ‘sea-change’, moving down the coast to near Margaret River. They want a simpler life and they sell most of their possessions, offloading everything surplus to their requirements. However when they get there and settle into their new lives, it does prove to be not quite as idyllic as they imagined. Rosie becomes a bit bored with her job and because she’s working at the pub and often closing late and Cray is up early to surf, they’re on completely different schedules and can go without seeing each other. I feel as though it’s mostly Rosie that makes an effort to step into the community by taking the job at the pub and getting to know the regulars and pushing to attend the community meetings about the proposed development. Cray and Rosie moved down to get away from lots of things and I think they want to preserve the isolated, rural feel of their new location.

Then there’s Ferg, who grew up in the area and his wife Liza and their son Sam. They live on a farm a small distance out of town. Ferg has taken over from his father, despite the fact that it wasn’t really his dream. Now he sees it as his job to preserve it for the next generation, his son Sam who loves the land and working on the farm. Sam also loves computers and has just received his first computer and is experiencing the joy of going online. This is set in around the mid to maybe late 90s. We got the internet in 1998 and like Sam, had to rely on dial up. Trying to hide that screeching sound from your parents when you’re supposed to be asleep was something I could relate to!

However I don’t really feel that these two stories ever really came together as a cohesive one. The characters don’t even meet until quite late in the story and the very slow build up suddenly accelerates towards the natural disaster. I didn’t even realise until I read the author’s note in the back of the book that it’s actually a real event that took place, which the author borrowed and re-imagined for the purposes of writing this story. I’d never heard of the event and I was surprised when it appeared. I’d been reading this meandering tale and then all of a sudden it took quite a turn. I knew a natural disaster was coming, the blurb tells that but it was still quite jarring when it appeared.

Ultimately I am not sure what exactly, the presence of Rosie and Cray bring to this book. Perhaps they are the eyes for the reader so that they can see the setting but ultimately I’m not sure they were necessary. I’d have preferred more time to devoted to Ferg, Liza and Sam, learning more about them and getting to know them. I felt like the issues with Ferg’s brother were somewhat unnecessarily dragged out and then not satisfactorily resolved.

Despite that, the writing was quite beautiful and at times, both Rosie and Cray’s story and that of Ferg, Liza and Sam were both easy to sink into. It’s not a very long book but somehow it still feels like a very slow, long build up. I enjoyed Rosie and Cray tossing in their commitments and going in search of adventure and a better life but at the same time, I don’t feel as though their story was really complete either. For me, it was hard to reconcile this as one story as so much felt left unsaid. However I did like the writing a lot and I did enjoy it as I was reading. It was only when I finished that I realised it didn’t feel as though it should be.

[Carol - Reading Writing and Riesling · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

My View:
The climax will haunt you whether you are a “local or not.

I am always keen to read books written by Australian authors particular those local to the region I live in or those written about that region– and you couldn’t get any more “local” than this, a story written about the Margaret River region. Local landmarks are thinly disguised and easily recognised. A narrative based on my local region, with a synopsis that talks about sea changes (which again appealed to me because of my own relatively recent sea change) and an environmental issue, I was hooked. A barely glanced over the line “But a natural disaster…” and wasn’t prepared for the emotional ending.

Fitzpatrick drew me in with elements that I thought would be related to my own life; there was so many aspects of the narrative that felt I would recognise, maybe empathise with; my daughter is a journalist, I have a son in-law who is a FIFO mine worker, we made a sea change to the Margaret River region…I thought I would find elements here I could identify with. But I didn’t. The book is set in the late 1990’s but at times felt so much older, so dated … or do I have a short memory? I am seeing a stereotyped version of a hippy/surfing culture that I think existed in the 70’s? I don’t know but for me the contemporary issues felt at odds with the setting. Something didn’t quite jell.

The story is told through the circumstance and lives of two sets of families - Rosie and Cray – who made the deliberate decision to move to the area and the Crowe family – a family of farmers who have always lived in the area, a juxtaposition of opinions and perspectives that eventually is meant to lead to us to an intersection where both families unite (over a development issue). This did not work for me – I did not feel there was any real connection between the two units, the relationship didn’t seem to grow and just seemed cursory. I think this aspect needs more development.

I can empathise with the desire to escape the city life and move to a regional area where life is more relaxed but I didn’t feel a connection with the main characters experiences and I didn’t feel any sense of the community they were seeking (until the very last pages) and then I didn’t feel they were part of that community. In fact the lives they moved to seemed pretty disparate with their ideals before they left, particularly for Rosie. Life was probably looking better to Cray but he was a character I didn’t warm to; I felt he was selfish.

Despite some misgiving with the lack of development of the relationships in this narrative I can see a wonderful potential in the story line regarding the history of the Crowe family. I would have liked to have known more about their lives, about their relationships, about the problems the family dealt with (and there are many) and the optimism Crowe senior had for life on the land. I would like to have known more about a family dealing with an addiction and with tragedy.

The tragedy – despite not living in the area at the time of this event (no spoilers here) I felt the wounds were still to raw to be presented in this forum. It is very clear what the author is referring to - there is no real effort to disguise the event. I think fiction/fact is too blurred here, “faction” is not what I wanted to read and is an entirely different narrative, one that could work so well – there is a story based on the tragedy that would really work here as a work of fiction, but not an identifiable fiction.

Writing that is engaging – a narrative that is not developed enough for my liking. But mine is just a personal view, you should make up your own mind.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The Break' is set in Margaret River, in the southwest of Western Australia, in the mid-1990s. It tells the story of two couples—Rosie and Cray, and Liza and Ferg, both of whom are having struggling.

Jaded journalist Rosie and her FIFO boyfriend, Cray, leave their jobs and move from Fremantle to the southwest for a fresh start and a better lifestyle. Rosie starts work at the local pub, but at first Cray is reluctant to look for work and spends his days surfing:

'Jesus bloody Christ, he thought. I'm only gunna live eighty years. And forty are meant to be spent working; forty trying to make money. People seemed to do anything to get the stuff, and expected him to do the same. And yet they all had those mugs with Countdown to the weekend and Thank God it's Friday on their desks. The least you could do, he reckoned, was have a job that fulfilled the basic human need of pleasure.'

The other couple, Liza and Ferg Crowe, have always lived in Margaret River, tending the family farm, resentfully at times.

'But he was bored too, if he was honest. Underwhelmed. Still on the farm, following his old man's dream. He tried to think. Had it ever become his own dream?'

Their only son, Sam, lonely and seeking refuge from his parents' arguments, finds solace in the exciting world inside his computer, and Ferg's mother, Pip, is trying to find purpose to her life after losing her husband. There's also Ferg's brother, Mike, an addict on the methadone programme, who wants to make another go of it and reappears in their lives.

This novel was written as a response to the 1996 cliff collapse in the southwest town of Gracetown, in which nine people were killed. I read the book knowing this and expecting the collapse to happen early, but the actual incident occurs towards the end, by which time the reader knows the characters so well that the effect is devastating.

The story is authentically West Australian—set in Fremantle, the Pilbara, and the southwest. It's told in an informal Aussie vernacular that is particularly evocative:

'After a coffee, and after Shitslinger had gone to let fly at a few of the others, Cray drove over to the pit, spraying a fresh coat of rust-coloured dust over the donga office as he left in the Hilux. It was only about a kay away on a good gravel track, and it gave him a chance to see the sky and the odd saltbush and mallee tree. Tumbleweed raced across the land. Sometimes he'd try to beat it if it was headed for the road, for the car, rolling—almost bouncing—quick and light, towards nowhere.'

I loved the descriptions of the ocean, in particular:

'But she saw him looking out at the gathering and ingathering of the water, and she sat up and looked, too, despite the autumn chill to the air.

The water came in, pummelled the rocks and sand, then retreated. It seemed to woo the land, with an intensity of lines and heaves and movement that didn't exist further out, closer to the horizon. Why is it, she thought, that where the two meet, water and land, there's this struggle?'

From about half-way through the story, the narrative seems to darken and slow, and creep towards its climax. The ending is powerful and stayed with me long after I'd put the book down.

In short, this is a story about family and relationships, about second chances and forgiveness, about starting afresh and working out what's important in life, and about the fragility of the land and of life.

See more reviews at: http://louise-allan.com

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about The Break, by Deb Fitzpatrick. The characterisation is really good, the story lures the reader in, the setting is well-realised and some of the lyrical writing is exquisite. I thought, however, that the novel laboured a bit to reach its climax, and then it felt as if the author couldn’t quite deal with the tragedy that unfolds. This may have been because the plot derives from a natural disaster that actually happened – there can sometimes be a sense of trespass when writing about events still raw in public memory. This novel is also Deb Fitzpatrick’s first venture into adult fiction and she perhaps has not quite achieved the transition: she’s a well-established author of YA books, which include The Amazing Spencer Gray (2013), Have you seen Ally Queen? (2011) and 90 packets of instant noodles (2010).


The story revolves around two families living in the beautiful Margaret River region of Western Australia. A disillusioned journalist called Rosie and a FIFO mineworker called Cray chuck in their jobs to pursue a more meaningful lifestyle in Margaret River; while Liza and Ferg are farming the land of Ferg’s forefathers. Along with Ferg’s recently widowed mother, Liza and Ferg have a school-age son Sam (holding together their rather creaky marriage), and also a brother in drug-rehab who joins them, acting as a catalyst for long-held resentments. So it’s an interesting cast of characters, delivering multiple intergenerational points-of-view. The dynamics between them all makes for interesting reading, but it’s not until the aftermath of the tragedy that these two families actually meet …

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/08/08/th...

[Cookie1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. I read it purely because a friend had it on her lounge and I picked it up. It is so very emotive. The characters are drawn so well I had no difficulty in visualising Sam, Liza, Pip, Rosie etc.
the surfing descriptions are wonderful and the author either surfs or did lots of research.
I know the Margaret River region and was able to identify in my mind the settings for the story.

[Trevor Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://bindblottyandcajole.wordpress...

[Glen Hunting · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 on balance...3 and a half up until the climax, 4 and a half thereafter. See comment to Lisa's review.

[Betty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Grace Town, this follows a family and the towns folk with the tragic cliff collapse. A thought provoking novel.

[N · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hovering between 1 and 1.5 stars.

Thought it was a little bit superficial and whilst the synopsis was accurate, the events detailed - pressure from developers and the natural disaster - were so insignificant in the overall story.

[Kira · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful depiction of life in Margaret River; and a lovely reminder to appreciate the ocean, and the community of people that call ‘Margies’ their home.

[SuzAnne King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living in a small community can bring a sense of belonging, or be suffocating. When Cray and Rosie flee Fremantle W.A. and their high paying jobs for a much needed breather from big city life they’re uncertain which will be the outcome.

Deb Fitzpatrick, author of 90 packets of Instant Noodles (2010) and The Amazing Spencer Gray (2013) sets the stage for her first adult novel, The Break, in a tiny surfing community near Margaret River. Here everyone knows everyone’s business. And more, for it’s not all sparkling seas and friendly locals: the town is besieged by money grubbing developers which threaten the very lifestyle which makes Grey’s Bay so attractive in the first place.
I love this book because The Break ponders themes familiar to every local living in a small place: from the solitude of wandering a beach bay where no one else is in sight, to the pleasure of raising a family where you know your neighbours personally.

Ms Fitzpatrick also shows us the darker side of life in a small town as we follow the despair of Mike, who leaves his frustrated family behind to spare them the shame of his notoriety. Some readers will hear echoes in the struggle for regional independence in the Residents Against Inappropriate Development meetings like so many facing coastal communities.

Think you’ve read it all before? Not so. A great many poignant moments for me in this short, smooth read. Sentences which seem straight forward are loaded with hidden meaning. And there’s a shock that hits like a bolt from the blue. ©️SuzanneKing

This book review was published by the Noosa Today newspaper on 24 Sep 2015.

[Monique Mulligan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Break is a quiet, subtle read with a distinctively Australian voice (and equally distinctive West Australian flavour) that builds slowly, but surely to its wrenching climax. Based on the real events of the Gracetown cliff collapse in 1996, readers familiar with the event, Western Australia’s worst natural disaster, will be led to the inevitable, unsettling outcome. There’s no sensationalism here – mirroring Rosie’s disdain for such an approach in journalism – but the careful crafting of a story that’s foreshadowed by what is known, and a few well-placed suggestions. (I guessed which character would not make it, and I cried inside, not wanting my theory to be right, but it made sense).

Surfing is one of the big themes in the book – riding on freedom, to freedom. To follow that theme, The Break is about breaks in more ways than one – the break from city life, from parental expectations, from bad choices, from prejudice, and from going with the flow. Much of the novel is like coasting on a wave as Fitzpatrick draws two very different couples together, until an unseen wave surges upwards to a peak before crashing and dumping, and then, as the wind dies and the waves subside, the tide ebbs and flows … and life goes on.

I enjoyed Fitzpatrick’s writing style, which blends casual slang and colloquialisms with the more poetic and literary descriptions of the landscape.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like Tim Winton, you would like this author; her descriptions of a place and time create an atmosphere that you can smell and feel. This story of two couples living in the Margaret River area, one very recently, deals with family and community; it is a story of redemption, forgiveness, loss and sorrow. It is also a story about the choices we make - money and material possessions versus quality of life.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always a joy to read about a place close to home (Margaret River, WA). This book is a treat, but I did shed some tears. The book moves slowly as you meet the characters and then you are hit with the emotion. I just hope there will be a second book. Would love to read more about Rosie, Cray,Liz, Ferg and the rest.

[Claire Miller]

I represent the publisher

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*