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Closing Down
No matter how strange, difficult and absurd the world becomes, some things never change. The importance of home. Of love. Of kindness to strangers. Of memories and dreams.
Australia's rural towns and communities are closing down, much of Australia is being sold to overseas interests, states and countries and regions are being realigned worldwide. Town matriarch Granna Adams, her grandson Roberto, the lonely and thoughtful Clare – all try in their own way to hold on to their sense of self, even as the world around them fractures.
What would you do if all you held to be familiar was lost? More importantly, where
do you belong?
An extraordinary debut novel from an exciting new Australian voice.
Australia's rural towns and communities are closing down, much of Australia is being sold to overseas interests, states and countries and regions are being realigned worldwide. Town matriarch Granna Adams, her grandson Roberto, the lonely and thoughtful Clare – all try in their own way to hold on to their sense of self, even as the world around them fractures.
What would you do if all you held to be familiar was lost? More importantly, where
do you belong?
An extraordinary debut novel from an exciting new Australian voice.
280 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2017
10 people are currently reading
252 people want to read
About the author
Sally Abbott
4 books8 followersSally Abbott is a former journalist and a PR Director who lives in Melbourne with her partner. She was the winner of The Richell Prize for Emerging Writers 2015. Closing Down is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
May 3, 2017
Clare found comfort in walking – every night she walked the quiet and lonesome streets of Myamba, two hours north of Melbourne until almost dawn when she returned home to sleep. Her thoughts were constant; the main topic in her head was the closing down of hundreds of towns; of rural communities throughout Australia. The devastation was taking over huge areas with people deciding their own ways of coming to terms with what was happening to them.
Robbie and Ella loved each other but often their jobs kept them apart. Robbie was constantly flying from one country to the next as he searched for the best news article to write, while Ella did her job settling refugees where they were ordered to go.
Granna Adams, Robbie’s grandmother, spent her time creating care packages for those less fortunate – those who had lost loved ones; their homes and livelihoods destroyed – Granna meant a lot to many people. She lived in Myamba in the House of Many Promises, which had been built decades previously by a Chinese man who’d had a vision that would mean much to future generations…
Could Granna, Clare and Robbie make a difference in a world which was gradually losing everything that was familiar? In a world where nothing or no one was safe anymore?
What an amazing, brilliant and breathtaking debut novel! Aussie author Sally Abbott won the Richell prize for emerging writers in 2015 when she submitted the first three chapters of Closing Down to Hachette Australia and wow! what a future she has ahead of her. Closing Down is different to anything I’ve read before, but it’s one I won’t forget for a very long time. Extremely highly recommended.
With many thanks to Hachette Australia for my ARC to read and review.
Robbie and Ella loved each other but often their jobs kept them apart. Robbie was constantly flying from one country to the next as he searched for the best news article to write, while Ella did her job settling refugees where they were ordered to go.
Granna Adams, Robbie’s grandmother, spent her time creating care packages for those less fortunate – those who had lost loved ones; their homes and livelihoods destroyed – Granna meant a lot to many people. She lived in Myamba in the House of Many Promises, which had been built decades previously by a Chinese man who’d had a vision that would mean much to future generations…
Could Granna, Clare and Robbie make a difference in a world which was gradually losing everything that was familiar? In a world where nothing or no one was safe anymore?
What an amazing, brilliant and breathtaking debut novel! Aussie author Sally Abbott won the Richell prize for emerging writers in 2015 when she submitted the first three chapters of Closing Down to Hachette Australia and wow! what a future she has ahead of her. Closing Down is different to anything I’ve read before, but it’s one I won’t forget for a very long time. Extremely highly recommended.
With many thanks to Hachette Australia for my ARC to read and review.
August 10, 2023
2023 : Even better of the re-read, because I already knew it was futuristic (but only just) speculative fiction and understood there would be some weird disjointed sequences. That left me free to concentrate on the writing which is almost formidably beautiful. The authors ability to use the written word to bring Australia to life is wonderful reading and her ability to create a creepy type of doomsday scenario does, at time make the hairs on the back of your neck rise!
Also on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iFU7...
2019 ; Flawless storytelling and beautiful writing combine in this book to make a reading experience I will not soon forget. The story deserves every grain of sand in those five stars I gave it, but whoever put together the blurb on the back deserves to be out of a job.... more on that later.
Actually, no, I will START with the blurb on the back and I will copy and paste it, which I almost never do but I have a point to make: No matter how strange, difficult and absurd the world becomes, some things never change. The importance of home. Of love. Of kindness to strangers. Of memories and dreams.
Australia's rural towns and communities are closing down, much of Australia is being sold to overseas interests, states and countries and regions are being realigned worldwide. Town matriarch Granna Adams, her grandson Roberto, the lonely and thoughtful Clare – all try in their own way to hold on to their sense of self, even as the world around them fractures.
What would you do if all you held to be familiar was lost? More importantly, where
do you belong?
Reading this description I thought that I was getting a work of fiction based in reality. Because a lot of Australia's small towns really are struggling to stay afloat. And, yes, lots of Australia is being sold to overseas interests without sensible precautions. As I had not read any realistic fiction recently I picked it up and spent the first part of my reading experience bewildered. Because, as it happens, this novel is pure dystopian science fiction, excellent quality, fully adult dystopian fiction of a caliber I have not seen for a quite a while.
Once I sorted that out in my mind, I was fine but the narrative starts so gently and in such a narrow focus that it is not immediately obvious. Perhaps the author designed it that way and the reader is not meant to know initially, that we are reading in a future where globalisation has become impersonally threatening, climate change has caused massive collapses in weather patterns and worldwide overpopulation and refugee problems are out of control. All this turmoil is the background for a remarkably peaceful, character driven reading experience which, as I said earlier, I found pretty much flawless.
The scene descriptions of the land and the urban populations are fascinating and often chilling. Having the two main characters, Clare and Roberto be from such diametrically opposed parts of society makes the world building rich and comprehensive and gives the reader a unique chance to go from the single person to the global perspective. The way Clare and Roberto's stories slowly come together is deftly and lightly done and makes for an entirely satisfying ending to the story.
Some readers, those who like their stories fully explained, might find one aspect of this book annoying. No spoilers, but throughout, in several places and for a number of characters there is an aspect that I can only think of as magic-realism. These are not glancing references, they are plot builders in a few ways for both main characters, but they are not ever explained. I know a few people who would be dissatisfied with this element of the novel though I found it quite charmingly surreal myself.
All in all the only part of the description on the back of the book that I can fully support is the last bit; An extraordinary debut novel from an exciting new Australian voice.
It is definitely that, and a rare example of a work that I feel fully deserves the prize it won.
But, seriously, whoever wrote that blurb on the cover! Surely if they were too busy to actually read the book or find out what it was about, surely they have an intern or something who could do it for them? There will be so many people out there who would love this book but will never pick it up, because they will have no idea what it is about.
Also on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iFU7...
2019 ; Flawless storytelling and beautiful writing combine in this book to make a reading experience I will not soon forget. The story deserves every grain of sand in those five stars I gave it, but whoever put together the blurb on the back deserves to be out of a job.... more on that later.
Actually, no, I will START with the blurb on the back and I will copy and paste it, which I almost never do but I have a point to make: No matter how strange, difficult and absurd the world becomes, some things never change. The importance of home. Of love. Of kindness to strangers. Of memories and dreams.
Australia's rural towns and communities are closing down, much of Australia is being sold to overseas interests, states and countries and regions are being realigned worldwide. Town matriarch Granna Adams, her grandson Roberto, the lonely and thoughtful Clare – all try in their own way to hold on to their sense of self, even as the world around them fractures.
What would you do if all you held to be familiar was lost? More importantly, where
do you belong?
Reading this description I thought that I was getting a work of fiction based in reality. Because a lot of Australia's small towns really are struggling to stay afloat. And, yes, lots of Australia is being sold to overseas interests without sensible precautions. As I had not read any realistic fiction recently I picked it up and spent the first part of my reading experience bewildered. Because, as it happens, this novel is pure dystopian science fiction, excellent quality, fully adult dystopian fiction of a caliber I have not seen for a quite a while.
Once I sorted that out in my mind, I was fine but the narrative starts so gently and in such a narrow focus that it is not immediately obvious. Perhaps the author designed it that way and the reader is not meant to know initially, that we are reading in a future where globalisation has become impersonally threatening, climate change has caused massive collapses in weather patterns and worldwide overpopulation and refugee problems are out of control. All this turmoil is the background for a remarkably peaceful, character driven reading experience which, as I said earlier, I found pretty much flawless.
The scene descriptions of the land and the urban populations are fascinating and often chilling. Having the two main characters, Clare and Roberto be from such diametrically opposed parts of society makes the world building rich and comprehensive and gives the reader a unique chance to go from the single person to the global perspective. The way Clare and Roberto's stories slowly come together is deftly and lightly done and makes for an entirely satisfying ending to the story.
Some readers, those who like their stories fully explained, might find one aspect of this book annoying. No spoilers, but throughout, in several places and for a number of characters there is an aspect that I can only think of as magic-realism. These are not glancing references, they are plot builders in a few ways for both main characters, but they are not ever explained. I know a few people who would be dissatisfied with this element of the novel though I found it quite charmingly surreal myself.
All in all the only part of the description on the back of the book that I can fully support is the last bit; An extraordinary debut novel from an exciting new Australian voice.
It is definitely that, and a rare example of a work that I feel fully deserves the prize it won.
But, seriously, whoever wrote that blurb on the cover! Surely if they were too busy to actually read the book or find out what it was about, surely they have an intern or something who could do it for them? There will be so many people out there who would love this book but will never pick it up, because they will have no idea what it is about.
December 4, 2017
I loved parts of this - the climate dystopia is terrifyingly plausible and the corporate takeover of government already feels basically complete - but I got a bit frustrated by it in the end. The magic realism elements felt out of place to me, and the story centred itself on a fairly privileged group of people without really engaging much with the stories of any of the individuals whose suffering formed the backdrop to the story. There's a lot to like here - Abbott's imaginative and writes well, but I was so excited by the first third or so that I'm feeling a bit disappointed at the end by the book's failure to quite live up to my expectations.
June 15, 2017
‘How has it all come to this?’
There are three main characters in this dystopian novel, set in an Australia which has largely been sold off to overseas interests. Rural towns are being closed by a remote central government, people are being displaced and dispossessed. The land is dry and food is limited. But the problems are not just confined to Australia: the countries and regions of the world are being realigned. Who cares about the human cost?
The main characters are Clare McDonald, Granna Adams and her grandson Roberto (Robbie). Clare walks the streets of Myamba most nights. She walks to escape: it’s the moving that matters. Clare thinks about the towns being closed, and what it means. Granna Adams creates and distributes care packages for those who have lost loved ones, their livelihoods, their homes. Robbie loves Ella, but they are often apart. Robbie travels around the world in search of newsworthy topics while Ella is a human rights worker, settling refugees where they are ordered to go.
From the opening page, this novel captured my attention. I was drawn in before I really had any idea of who the characters might be and where the story was heading. While Robbie’s story captured my heart, it was Clare and Granna who keep hope alive. These two very different, resilient women combine forces in Granna’s home, the House of Many Promises, to try to improve life for others. They do: in part because of the foresight of the man who originally built the house, and the rest you’ll need to read for yourself.
This is one of those novels which is best read, not explained. The components lack the magic of the whole. It’s imaginative, and disturbingly possible. This is Ms Abbott’s debut novel, and won the inaugural Richell Prize for Emerging Writers in 2015 from a field of almost 1000 entries.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
There are three main characters in this dystopian novel, set in an Australia which has largely been sold off to overseas interests. Rural towns are being closed by a remote central government, people are being displaced and dispossessed. The land is dry and food is limited. But the problems are not just confined to Australia: the countries and regions of the world are being realigned. Who cares about the human cost?
The main characters are Clare McDonald, Granna Adams and her grandson Roberto (Robbie). Clare walks the streets of Myamba most nights. She walks to escape: it’s the moving that matters. Clare thinks about the towns being closed, and what it means. Granna Adams creates and distributes care packages for those who have lost loved ones, their livelihoods, their homes. Robbie loves Ella, but they are often apart. Robbie travels around the world in search of newsworthy topics while Ella is a human rights worker, settling refugees where they are ordered to go.
From the opening page, this novel captured my attention. I was drawn in before I really had any idea of who the characters might be and where the story was heading. While Robbie’s story captured my heart, it was Clare and Granna who keep hope alive. These two very different, resilient women combine forces in Granna’s home, the House of Many Promises, to try to improve life for others. They do: in part because of the foresight of the man who originally built the house, and the rest you’ll need to read for yourself.
This is one of those novels which is best read, not explained. The components lack the magic of the whole. It’s imaginative, and disturbingly possible. This is Ms Abbott’s debut novel, and won the inaugural Richell Prize for Emerging Writers in 2015 from a field of almost 1000 entries.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
May 9, 2018
Aurealis Award Best SF Novel short list 2017
Rural Australia...this could happen!
Review
Rural Australia...this could happen!
Review
May 26, 2017
I loved this. Beautifully written, with authentic characters and a deep heart to its exploration of a (terrifyingly plausible) environmental apocalypse. While the effects of the speculative elements are deftly drawn, it's primarily a deeply-satisfying character-driven story. At times it reminded me of David Mitchell's stunning The Bone Clocks.
My curiosity wanted a little more filling in of details about the wider world (especially given the main characters were all relatively privileged within the societal breakdown taking place globally), and the ending was a bit too neat, but those are only small quibbles. Closing Down is a powerful and moving debut novel.
My curiosity wanted a little more filling in of details about the wider world (especially given the main characters were all relatively privileged within the societal breakdown taking place globally), and the ending was a bit too neat, but those are only small quibbles. Closing Down is a powerful and moving debut novel.
April 26, 2017
Beautifully written, terrifying story about Australia in the near future. The characters and images stayed in my mind long after I finished reading. Abbott completely nails the Zeitgeist with this one. Highly recommended.
May 31, 2018
4.5 - A terrifying glimpse into our future. I just needed more answers!
April 24, 2017
A thought provoking book that had me thinking about it for weeks afterwards. A great read and excellent book group choice with lots to discuss.
June 20, 2017
Closing Down is a really interesting work of "cli-fi". Set in the near future, it imagines a world that is struggling with the effects of climate change, and the social, political and economic difficulties associated with it. Rather than a plot-driven novel, the story meanders, slow and steady as one of the three main characters on her nightly walks through town - she doesn't walk to get anywhere, specifically, but just to move and observe.
Likewise, the main focus of this novel is world-building and characters. There are three main characters, as well as the narrator who occasionally interacts with them. Robbie, a jet-setting journalist; Granna, his grandmother who has made the best of her privilege; and Clare, an unemployed battler who walks and watches. They don't really interact until about halfway through the book, and by then the reader has a good sense of who they all are.
For me, though, it was the dystopian future that held the most interest. Abbott has created a world where the north and west of Australia are being closed, forcibly and permanently evacuated. The towns and cities where people are being moved don't have the infrastructure to cope with the population influx. Around the world, weather extremes and food insecurity seem to be the norm. Millions of refugees flood to processing centres. Some choose to try their luck in a reality TV competition, which airs in Australia and presumably elsewhere in the world - viewers watch as refugees try to navigate boats through plastic-strewn and shark infested waters (at least the sharks have survived!) in order to keep their food rations for the week. A phone call to a Centrelink-like service, whose call centre is located underneath China, casually reveals that citizens no longer need to fill in forms; the government can track everywhere we go and everything we do through our phones anyways.
It is because this future is so based in our own, and seems plausible, that the novel is so unsettling and such a page-turner. It isn't all bleak - there are glimpses of escape:
"And that is the thing. It is hard to close things down. They have always tried, in different ways and using different means. Tried to close down a voice, a movement, a town, a country. But people find ways. They always have. Ghosts find ways too. They even find ways together."
I only wish that there were a few more answers regarding some of the stranger elements - the ghosts, the resistance movement, the walkers. While the ending does wrap up some plot elements rather neatly, I finish the book feeling in the dark about lots of what appeared within the pages.
Likewise, the main focus of this novel is world-building and characters. There are three main characters, as well as the narrator who occasionally interacts with them. Robbie, a jet-setting journalist; Granna, his grandmother who has made the best of her privilege; and Clare, an unemployed battler who walks and watches. They don't really interact until about halfway through the book, and by then the reader has a good sense of who they all are.
For me, though, it was the dystopian future that held the most interest. Abbott has created a world where the north and west of Australia are being closed, forcibly and permanently evacuated. The towns and cities where people are being moved don't have the infrastructure to cope with the population influx. Around the world, weather extremes and food insecurity seem to be the norm. Millions of refugees flood to processing centres. Some choose to try their luck in a reality TV competition, which airs in Australia and presumably elsewhere in the world - viewers watch as refugees try to navigate boats through plastic-strewn and shark infested waters (at least the sharks have survived!) in order to keep their food rations for the week. A phone call to a Centrelink-like service, whose call centre is located underneath China, casually reveals that citizens no longer need to fill in forms; the government can track everywhere we go and everything we do through our phones anyways.
It is because this future is so based in our own, and seems plausible, that the novel is so unsettling and such a page-turner. It isn't all bleak - there are glimpses of escape:
"And that is the thing. It is hard to close things down. They have always tried, in different ways and using different means. Tried to close down a voice, a movement, a town, a country. But people find ways. They always have. Ghosts find ways too. They even find ways together."
I only wish that there were a few more answers regarding some of the stranger elements - the ghosts, the resistance movement, the walkers. While the ending does wrap up some plot elements rather neatly, I finish the book feeling in the dark about lots of what appeared within the pages.
May 6, 2017
This is a chaotic combination that mixes a climate-change based dystopia in the year 2040ish and a magical realism that includes Chinese ghosts, intelligent cats and a mysterious man who drugs people with scents. There are also dashes of libertarian grumbles that imply that the world is going to hell because of government meddling. No one is happy in this future world but the characters are trying to get by as best they can. The non-magical characters are very well crafted, and the depictions of the Australian landscape and rural life are excellent, but the story is so weird I couldn't really enjoy it. I read to the end because I wanted to understand what was going on but it's never really explained. If you like visualising the downfall of society or the weirdness of the 60's TV show The Prisoner or the vagueness of the show Lost you might like this more than I did.
Hatchette Australia gave me a copy of this book to honestly review.
Hatchette Australia gave me a copy of this book to honestly review.
May 9, 2017
I did love this book, and maybe 4.5 stars is more accurate, although I'm finding that there were so many unanswered questions that it actually has been very frustrating upon contemplation. Where did the bones come from? Who was the little blond girl? What was the significance of the forbidden house in Greece? It is definitely one of those stories that stays with you.
Great characters, including several strong and flawed females (my favourite). The writing was beautifully descriptive, (but not too wordy). I truly loved Abbott's prose and can't wait to read more from her. A talent indeed.
Due to some violence, I would read prior to providing to younger teens. And I will be choosing this for my book club, (with a warning).
Great characters, including several strong and flawed females (my favourite). The writing was beautifully descriptive, (but not too wordy). I truly loved Abbott's prose and can't wait to read more from her. A talent indeed.
Due to some violence, I would read prior to providing to younger teens. And I will be choosing this for my book club, (with a warning).
October 5, 2022
Amongst the prizes that contribute to Australia's literary culture are those that are not for already published works, but have been established to identify emerging writers, and to offer the winners a contract for publication. Launched in 1980 the Vogel is, I think, the best-known of these, but there is also the TAG Hungerford Award launched in 1988 and more recently the Hachette's Richell prize, launched in 2015 in memory of Hachette Australia’s CEO, Matt Richell, who died suddenly in July 2014.
Sally Abbott was the inaugural winner of the Richell Prize in 2015, chosen, according to an interview at The Guardian, from among 969 other submissions, and Closing Down was published in 2017. The novel went on to be shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Science Fiction, which surprised me because it never occurred to me that this book was SF. The Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction has categories for SF, Fantasy and Horror, but doesn't differentiate between SF and Speculative Fiction so by their definition I've read lots of SF and by Wikipedia's definition, (see below) I've read very little.
Closing Down is set in a disturbing future world, but it's a very near future world, with recognisable elements exposed for what they are. The world has been corporatised and realigned, and this means that uneconomic small towns are being closed down and the people relocated to mega cities. Shelter, for the 'lucky' ones, is in tiny flats in soulless concrete canyons, but the waiting lists are years long. For the others that means refugee camps on a scale not so far from those horrific wastelands in the Middle East and Europe, and for others, it means joining the walkers. These people evade the travel permits and patrols, and—carrying everything they own—walk out into the arid interior and are never heard of again.
Clare, about to be homeless because her ratbag cottage has to be demolished because it isn't fireproof, calls the unemployment office to notify them of her change of address. She doesn't have a new one, but she won't be living at the old one any more. After she'd pressed every available option and waited for three hours, a voice did come on the line. She needn't have bothered.
The voice goes on to explain that her phone is the naughty lover who tells us all your secrets.' They have a history of exactly where's she been, and they know she hasn't had a paid job for eight years, and that her husband last worked at a canning factory which doesn't exist any more. This voice knows how to warn off any complaints: they could put an alert on Clare since the fudging around her work history is suspicious. The voice knows it isn't possible for Clare and her husband Phil to survive on handouts.
Sally Abbott was the inaugural winner of the Richell Prize in 2015, chosen, according to an interview at The Guardian, from among 969 other submissions, and Closing Down was published in 2017. The novel went on to be shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Science Fiction, which surprised me because it never occurred to me that this book was SF. The Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction has categories for SF, Fantasy and Horror, but doesn't differentiate between SF and Speculative Fiction so by their definition I've read lots of SF and by Wikipedia's definition, (see below) I've read very little.
Closing Down is set in a disturbing future world, but it's a very near future world, with recognisable elements exposed for what they are. The world has been corporatised and realigned, and this means that uneconomic small towns are being closed down and the people relocated to mega cities. Shelter, for the 'lucky' ones, is in tiny flats in soulless concrete canyons, but the waiting lists are years long. For the others that means refugee camps on a scale not so far from those horrific wastelands in the Middle East and Europe, and for others, it means joining the walkers. These people evade the travel permits and patrols, and—carrying everything they own—walk out into the arid interior and are never heard of again.
Clare, about to be homeless because her ratbag cottage has to be demolished because it isn't fireproof, calls the unemployment office to notify them of her change of address. She doesn't have a new one, but she won't be living at the old one any more. After she'd pressed every available option and waited for three hours, a voice did come on the line. She needn't have bothered.
'I've always had to tell you guys everything. Otherwise I can't get my benefit.'
'Used to. Not any more. now we know everything. All the time. No telling necessary.'
[...]
'How do you know?'
'Your phone, of course.'
'But I've always had my phone.'
'Well, that was your phone then, honey, and this is your phone now. No one does paper any more. Not here. I can't remember when I last touched the stuff. Now I'm looking at everything I need to know about you. Let me see... so, you were once a hairdresser. And you did cleaning work. Lovely. Ah, you're in D segment.'
What's D segment?'
'Doomed, dear. Doomed. ' The voice broke into a high-pitched giggle.' 'Disaster. Dead. Doomed.'
Clare said nothing. This seemed entirely plausible.
'Just our little joke, of course.' When Clare stayed silent, the voice became anxious. 'Really sweetie, just a joke. After all, we're all doomed, aren't we? Well, the humans anyway. Don't take it personally.' (pp. 97-8)
The voice goes on to explain that her phone is the naughty lover who tells us all your secrets.' They have a history of exactly where's she been, and they know she hasn't had a paid job for eight years, and that her husband last worked at a canning factory which doesn't exist any more. This voice knows how to warn off any complaints: they could put an alert on Clare since the fudging around her work history is suspicious. The voice knows it isn't possible for Clare and her husband Phil to survive on handouts.
September 5, 2017
Rural Australia is both developing and narrowing. The selling out of Australia to foreign interests has resulted in multitudes of country towns closing down and officially ceasing to exist. Centralizing the displaced has become the solution to the increasing shortage of food and resources. Generational land ownership comes to a forced end, and for the residents of the bush communities, the country of their birth is becoming unrecognizable.
Clare is eking out an existence in country Myamba, dependent upon her government rations and the small routines of her domestic life. She hasn't yet joined the walkers, the homeless who drift from town to town, but her night time activities have her crossing paths with their increasing ranks. Clare's husband continues to wallowing in his despair and their rented property will shortly be taken away from them. Clare must think of somewhere to go where she will be safe.
Robbie and Ella's lives are lived in snatches of time between work trips, and their careers increasingly reveal to them the insanity at work behind the facades of government and large corporations. People just don't behave like they used to. Robbie longs to return home but isn't sure that Myamba holds the answers either to the disintegration of kind society that he is witnessing.
Compassionately and carefully constructed to be something quite precious, CLOSING DOWN is a novel that does not attempt to create an fantastical and unbelievable landscape of future Australia. Instead, it takes concerns already present in our current debate and presents their possible eventualities, some of these being the erosion of our national identity, the issue of climate change, and the strangulation of enterprise by unnecessarily pedantic overview and the repeated lashings of bureaucratic red tape. Presenting a possible composite result of where our cultural fears may lead us, CLOSING DOWN illustrates the concerns and divides of living in a country at the bottom of the world that faces unique challenges not only due to its geographic location and harsh environment, but also because of how it may be considered to be a soft target in the global community.
There are supernatural elements in this book that add curious little vignettes to the storylines of both Clare and Roberto. They shouldn't really work in the context of what is often a gritty slog through dread and dissolution but somehow they do. If you're seeking clarity throughout your read you may often be disappointed as the novel can often seem to be meandering about rather than moving purposefully.
The specifics of living in a such an narrowing society has altered the citizens living within its constraints. In CLOSING DOWN this has not only affected the behaviours of its people of its animals as well. As society erodes, the manic activity of centralization and conformity continues to charge senselessly ahead and the bewilderment experienced by the characters in this novel is both relatable and frightening. It's a huge testament to the author that all the ingredients included in this book have not resulted in a work so bleak that there appears to be no way free of its gloom. Somewhere between the governmental guidelines are lives continuing to be lived in CLOSING DOWN, largely in ignorance, and increasingly in fear, but being lived regardless.
CLOSING DOWN was the 2015 winner of the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, and the debut novel of author Sally Abbott.
Clare is eking out an existence in country Myamba, dependent upon her government rations and the small routines of her domestic life. She hasn't yet joined the walkers, the homeless who drift from town to town, but her night time activities have her crossing paths with their increasing ranks. Clare's husband continues to wallowing in his despair and their rented property will shortly be taken away from them. Clare must think of somewhere to go where she will be safe.
Robbie and Ella's lives are lived in snatches of time between work trips, and their careers increasingly reveal to them the insanity at work behind the facades of government and large corporations. People just don't behave like they used to. Robbie longs to return home but isn't sure that Myamba holds the answers either to the disintegration of kind society that he is witnessing.
Compassionately and carefully constructed to be something quite precious, CLOSING DOWN is a novel that does not attempt to create an fantastical and unbelievable landscape of future Australia. Instead, it takes concerns already present in our current debate and presents their possible eventualities, some of these being the erosion of our national identity, the issue of climate change, and the strangulation of enterprise by unnecessarily pedantic overview and the repeated lashings of bureaucratic red tape. Presenting a possible composite result of where our cultural fears may lead us, CLOSING DOWN illustrates the concerns and divides of living in a country at the bottom of the world that faces unique challenges not only due to its geographic location and harsh environment, but also because of how it may be considered to be a soft target in the global community.
There are supernatural elements in this book that add curious little vignettes to the storylines of both Clare and Roberto. They shouldn't really work in the context of what is often a gritty slog through dread and dissolution but somehow they do. If you're seeking clarity throughout your read you may often be disappointed as the novel can often seem to be meandering about rather than moving purposefully.
The specifics of living in a such an narrowing society has altered the citizens living within its constraints. In CLOSING DOWN this has not only affected the behaviours of its people of its animals as well. As society erodes, the manic activity of centralization and conformity continues to charge senselessly ahead and the bewilderment experienced by the characters in this novel is both relatable and frightening. It's a huge testament to the author that all the ingredients included in this book have not resulted in a work so bleak that there appears to be no way free of its gloom. Somewhere between the governmental guidelines are lives continuing to be lived in CLOSING DOWN, largely in ignorance, and increasingly in fear, but being lived regardless.
CLOSING DOWN was the 2015 winner of the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, and the debut novel of author Sally Abbott.
November 16, 2017
This is a book with no answers so if that's going to bother you I'm going to direct you away because the questions it raises are pretty damn pressing.
Outside of that, this is a beautifully crafted little snap shot of the world completely and utterly going to shit. It's also way more graphic and horrifying than what it sells itself as. Also, if you're sensitive to animal suffering this is not a book for you. That first chapter alone had me sobbing for ten minutes and I was only five pages in.
The characters are well rounded and we get to see a fair bit of their personality but some of them are too vague around the edges and remain somewhat mysterious, that could be a plus or minus for some people but it does tend to work in favour of the narrative for this particular book.
The stage is set perfectly, in fact, where there are no answers there is still visceral imagery that sits with you well after putting the book down.
There's probably an underlying moral story here about the growing ambilievance towards refugees, especially poignant due to the setting (here's looking at you, sack of shit Peter Dutton and your LNP colleagues and everything you have fucking done in regards to Manus), the growth of greed in proportion to the disregard for our earth and environment (who gives a shit as long as we make money?) but I'm probably not the person to make this comparisons in the eloquent way they deserve.
Anyway. Good. Fucking disturbing. Probably instilled a deep gnawing fear in me that no other horror novel could do and yet it's not really part of that genre but yet here we are.
Outside of that, this is a beautifully crafted little snap shot of the world completely and utterly going to shit. It's also way more graphic and horrifying than what it sells itself as. Also, if you're sensitive to animal suffering this is not a book for you. That first chapter alone had me sobbing for ten minutes and I was only five pages in.
The characters are well rounded and we get to see a fair bit of their personality but some of them are too vague around the edges and remain somewhat mysterious, that could be a plus or minus for some people but it does tend to work in favour of the narrative for this particular book.
The stage is set perfectly, in fact, where there are no answers there is still visceral imagery that sits with you well after putting the book down.
There's probably an underlying moral story here about the growing ambilievance towards refugees, especially poignant due to the setting (here's looking at you, sack of shit Peter Dutton and your LNP colleagues and everything you have fucking done in regards to Manus), the growth of greed in proportion to the disregard for our earth and environment (who gives a shit as long as we make money?) but I'm probably not the person to make this comparisons in the eloquent way they deserve.
Anyway. Good. Fucking disturbing. Probably instilled a deep gnawing fear in me that no other horror novel could do and yet it's not really part of that genre but yet here we are.
July 2, 2017
In Closing Down, Sally Abbott imagines a dystopic Australia in the not-too-distant future. Australian land has been sold off, from the Northern Territory to rural land and small country towns. Paid a pittance for their land, people are forcibly moved out, told to try their luck in the city, where they live in small, cramped apartments, never seeing the sun. It is in this world that we meet Robbie, a disillusioned journalist who travels the world, and Clare, who is stuck in the rut of unemployment, existing on handouts.
Closing Down is one hell of a debut novel. The dystopia is reminiscent of Mad Max but feels startlingly real, built up from issues we hear about today: foreign ownership of Australia, climate change, xenophobia and racism, the governments that do what they want… Abbott’s writing is strong and vivid, aided by the powerful visuals she brings to her work, the characters are likeable but far from flat.
If I have a criticism, it’s that Closing Down almost feels like there’s too much for such a short book. The characters are what drives it and, while their arcs feel mostly complete (Abbott hints at a romance that doesn’t come to anything) and while I feel that it’s entirely believable that they don’t do more, don’t find out more – I wanted more. Answers, rebellions, a reckoning, disaster – I wanted it.
Regardless, this is a brilliant debut and Abbott is an author I’ll be keeping an eye out for.
Closing Down is one hell of a debut novel. The dystopia is reminiscent of Mad Max but feels startlingly real, built up from issues we hear about today: foreign ownership of Australia, climate change, xenophobia and racism, the governments that do what they want… Abbott’s writing is strong and vivid, aided by the powerful visuals she brings to her work, the characters are likeable but far from flat.
If I have a criticism, it’s that Closing Down almost feels like there’s too much for such a short book. The characters are what drives it and, while their arcs feel mostly complete (Abbott hints at a romance that doesn’t come to anything) and while I feel that it’s entirely believable that they don’t do more, don’t find out more – I wanted more. Answers, rebellions, a reckoning, disaster – I wanted it.
Regardless, this is a brilliant debut and Abbott is an author I’ll be keeping an eye out for.
October 8, 2017
I read this novel in a weekend. The sad, at times confronting, images of a future dystopian Australia were juxtaposed with some gorgeous imagery and descriptions of all the things we love about our country as well. I felt nostalgic for my own home!
The story was compelling and I fell in love with the characters who all became very real to me. A beautiful novel. Well done Sally Abbott - a deserved winner of the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.
The story was compelling and I fell in love with the characters who all became very real to me. A beautiful novel. Well done Sally Abbott - a deserved winner of the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.
July 7, 2017
Dystopian Australia set in near future; society struggles to hold itself in the wake of political/ economic decisions with profound consequences for daily life. Well drawn characters try to find reason, love, and community. Throughout we are cognisant of all that have walked this fragile land, older spirits are with us.
Very satisfying layered themes, both scary and hopeful.
Very satisfying layered themes, both scary and hopeful.
July 21, 2017
This beautifully written book has excited my need to do something more about climate change before it is too late. Fabulous characters, some mysterious brought to life the potential reality of future life on this planet Earth. Particularly relevant to those now living in rural areas and those who would. A great read with a meaty story. Everyone needs to read this.
July 29, 2017
Bizarre, horrifying, and almost unbearably melancholy. I've been in a strange mood ever since I finished it. The dystopia wasn't particularly dystopic - it was so easy to see that this is where our world is going to end up. Very unsettling.
I do wish it would have answered the question about the bones, and the drawings.
I do wish it would have answered the question about the bones, and the drawings.
January 21, 2020
Closing Down could be described as a semi-apocalyptic, dying-earth, soft sci-fi story mixed in with a few dollops of spiritual symbolism, but it is really Sally Abbott's intense study of the people living in her apoplectic world, and the classic Australian-style slow burn writing, which provide the feeling of unsettling disquiet that pervades and defines her debut novel.
August 14, 2023
Beautifully written novel with characters that evolve over time. The first chapter was so well crafted that it got me in straight away and I wanted to read more. Although it’s futuristic, it’s not a future that’s out of the question, which made me a little uneasy. The story was a bit quirky at times and seemed to drift a little bit overall I really enjoyed it.
September 23, 2017
This is an amazing debut novel, which won the Richell prize for Emerging Writers in 2015. The apocalyptic future it depicts is horrendous, but the novel escapes being too bleak because of the humanity of its characters.
March 7, 2018
Dystopian novel with a hint of the supernatural. I really enjoyed this novel about the possible Australia of the future, in fact the possible state of our future planet. Loved the characters surviving in a small country town in Victoria.
September 28, 2018
Survival in an apocalyptic world and the importance of family and great people necessary to survive. Great descriptive insight to where Australia and the world could potentially end up if we leave it in the hands of corruption and dictators. Unnerving
July 6, 2021
I was going to give up on this story because it is not the way I want to see our world, but in the end I am glad I stayed with it as it turned out to be a good story, about how the world might look in the future, though I hope not quite like this.
May 9, 2017
This book felt truly original to me. At times fantastical (like a Murakami novel) but anchored in a future that felt frighteningly possible. Characters absorbing. Loved it.
June 8, 2017
Australia in the new future
September 17, 2017
Enjoyed the style of writing, reads well and interesting characters. A future of the world? I sincerely hope not.
October 15, 2017
I felt this fizzled out a bit at the end but I loved the first half/three quarters so much that it deserves four stars
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