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Fury
No matter how far she travels as she hitchhikes across Australia, she can't outrun the stigma or the memories that haunt her. Sharp, sassy and determined not to be broken, she accepts a job as a cook on a fishing boat. Totally inexperienced, both as a sailor and a chef, a girl among tough working men and literally all at sea, Kacey confronts more than just the elements on the journey that follows. Facing a ferocious storm as well as treachery, she learns how to fashion a new story for herself-one in which she is strong enough to be the hero. These are captivating memories of growing up in Australia, and the tribulations Heyman encounters and escapes. Unsentimental and unflinching, she stares down disaster and looks back with a healthy rage and exhilarating intelligence.
240 pages, Paperback
Published October 15, 2020
22 people are currently reading
371 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Heyman
17 books50 followersKathryn Heyman is the author of six novels including the forthcoming Storm and Grace (Allen and Unwin, Feb 2017), described by British writer Jill Dawson as "Dark, sexy, haunting...timely and important.." Her earlier works are The Breaking ( Orion, London, 1997), Keep Your Hands on the Wheel (Orion, 1999), The Accomplice (Hodder, London, 2003), Captain Starlight's Apprentice (Hodder, 2006) and Floodline (Allen and Unwin, 2013). She is also a playwright for theatre and radio and director of the Australian Writers Mentoring Program. Her short stories have appeared in a number of collections and also on radio. Heyman's writing has been compared with that of Joseph Conrad, Angela Carter, Peter Carey and Kate Grenville.
Kathryn's first novel, The Breaking was shortlisted for the Stakis Award for the Scottish Writer of the Year and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Other awards include an Arts Council of England Writers Award, the Wingate and the Southern Arts Awards, and nominations for the Edinburgh Fringe Critics’ Awards, the Kibble Prize, and the West Australian Premier’s Book Awards.
Kathryn Heyman’s several plays for BBC radio include Far Country and Moonlite’s Boy , inspired by the life of bushranger Captain Moonlite. Two of her novels have been adapted for BBC radio: Keep Your Hands on the Wheel as a play and ,Captain Starlight’s Apprentice as a five part dramatic serial.
Kathryn's first novel, The Breaking was shortlisted for the Stakis Award for the Scottish Writer of the Year and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Other awards include an Arts Council of England Writers Award, the Wingate and the Southern Arts Awards, and nominations for the Edinburgh Fringe Critics’ Awards, the Kibble Prize, and the West Australian Premier’s Book Awards.
Kathryn Heyman’s several plays for BBC radio include Far Country and Moonlite’s Boy , inspired by the life of bushranger Captain Moonlite. Two of her novels have been adapted for BBC radio: Keep Your Hands on the Wheel as a play and ,Captain Starlight’s Apprentice as a five part dramatic serial.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
June 7, 2021
What a powerful memoir. As someone of a similar vintage to the author, I remember only too well what it was like for a girl in Australia in the 70s and 80s – the smutty male behaviour we put up with, the sexual assaults that we were blamed for. The embarrassment and shame. The things we knew we couldn't speak of because if we did the blame and shame would be laid fairly and squarely on ourselves.
This book shines a light into some dark and dirty corners of male behaviour. It's hard to believe a taxi driver could get off after raping an intoxicated young woman who’d trusted him to get her home safely. But you only have to look at Brittany Higgins and many others to see it's still happening – women are still bearing the guilt and shame for men’s bad behaviour.
The real heart of this story is the protagonist herself – her resilience and independence – and the healing power of words and the ocean.
As I read this book, there were many times I wanted to hug young Kathryn, but right now I want to say, Thank you, grown-up Kathryn, for having the courage to put this story into words.
This book shines a light into some dark and dirty corners of male behaviour. It's hard to believe a taxi driver could get off after raping an intoxicated young woman who’d trusted him to get her home safely. But you only have to look at Brittany Higgins and many others to see it's still happening – women are still bearing the guilt and shame for men’s bad behaviour.
The real heart of this story is the protagonist herself – her resilience and independence – and the healing power of words and the ocean.
As I read this book, there were many times I wanted to hug young Kathryn, but right now I want to say, Thank you, grown-up Kathryn, for having the courage to put this story into words.
October 18, 2021
Love the urgency, the poetry and the craft of this memoir. It has a great structure that skillfully weaves between several temporalities without feeling jumpy. It’s a really dark story of rape, child neglect and domestic violence, and albeit all that is a well-trodden territory in literature, Heyman finds new, non-cliched language for these experiences. Her prose is often visceral, Jack Kerouacy but with a female slant (this isn’t an original thought; there are many references to On the Road in the text). The world of commercial fishing is beautifully recreated. Then, while the book has a strong theme throughout, Heyman also allows for detours and diversions that enrich the story. Reading this book is a hypnotic experience in the best sense of this expression.
May 14, 2021
CW: sexual assault, childhood sexual abuse, fat phobia, ableist language.
This memoir by Kathryn Heyman is beautifully written. It’s got so many accounts of abuse she has endured - from childhood, as a teenager and in young adulthood. I was so angry for her many times in this book - at the abusers and the system that victim blamed Kathryn.
She finds herself at sea, working on a boat called The Ocean Thief.
This memoir is not told in a linear way, rather is jumps around a lot. Still, it wasn’t hard to keep up. It’s a story of class, poverty, body image (has some fat phobia within) and abuse, but also self discovery and freedom.
There was a disability slur in this book - a version of the R word. It was a direct quote from someone who insulted Kathryn, and she described his insults as “learned”. What a wasted opportunity not to call out the problem of using ableist language. My rating would have been far higher if it wasn’t for this word - it was published in 2021 - writers, editors and publishers need to do better.
I want to read Kathryn’s fiction now.
I listened to the audiobook which was engaging.
This memoir by Kathryn Heyman is beautifully written. It’s got so many accounts of abuse she has endured - from childhood, as a teenager and in young adulthood. I was so angry for her many times in this book - at the abusers and the system that victim blamed Kathryn.
She finds herself at sea, working on a boat called The Ocean Thief.
This memoir is not told in a linear way, rather is jumps around a lot. Still, it wasn’t hard to keep up. It’s a story of class, poverty, body image (has some fat phobia within) and abuse, but also self discovery and freedom.
There was a disability slur in this book - a version of the R word. It was a direct quote from someone who insulted Kathryn, and she described his insults as “learned”. What a wasted opportunity not to call out the problem of using ableist language. My rating would have been far higher if it wasn’t for this word - it was published in 2021 - writers, editors and publishers need to do better.
I want to read Kathryn’s fiction now.
I listened to the audiobook which was engaging.
March 3, 2022
A powerful memoir of a girl living in the lower class area of her home in Australia. She hears her mum being abused and wants to find a better life but she just can’t seem to get there through lack of money. She loves books and that’s where she learns so much from reading classics and up to date material when she can afford them or find them. Her life is very typical but sad of what I’ve heard of the towns where males are the dominant force. This is shown by the attitude of the police man when she goes to report the horrific crime against her. Her lower economic status seems shown to be given the fact she could be lying and all her life she a just a silly girl. She wants to be the sun kissed blond girl with long slim legs but she’s the total opposite I did find this a tad boring and repetitive at times but I guess it could be just not my type of book.
October 6, 2021
Kathryn Heyman is furious, and she has channelled over 30 years of that emotion into her memoir Fury (Allen and Unwin 2021), a confronting, powerful and triumphant story of abuse, poverty, class and ultimately, the joy of knowing your true self and what you are capable of achieving.
Fury is written with the page-turning tension and drama of a novel, but we are drawn back again and again with memories of real incidents that remind us that this is a story of a life. The action, particularly the scenes of Heyman at sea as a deckhand on the Ocean Thief, energises the narrative in a thoroughly engaging way. And perhaps the most important and compelling message of this book is this: that no matter where you begin in your life and what your origin story, that does not have to define who you decide to become, or the journey you take to get there. There is hope in this story, and triumph, and satisfaction and relief, and that is what lifts this from a memoir that could be terribly distressing and sad to a story of achievement and courage.
The structure of this book is complex and interesting. The themes include sexual abuse and assault, violence, misogyny, prejudice, classism and poverty. The chapters jump backwards and forwards in time, as Heyman recounts various incidents from her childhood, her adolescence, and her life-changing experience on the fishing trawler, which all contrast sharply with her position today as a confident and well-known academic and writing mentor. As she details the events she suffered or endured as a child – particularly as a girl – and then as a young woman, ranging from verbal abuse to public humiliation to rape, the years unspool like a fiction, until we are periodically reminded that this is no fiction, this is a real-life account, a remembering, an accounting, an almost unbelievable number and degree of assaults that are all the more unsettling because they are non-fiction, and the story of one woman’s life.
Not the whole story, though, and Heyman’s redemption marks this narrative as a triumph not a tragedy. Her gradual understanding of who she is, the knowledge she gains through reading, the power she asserts through writing, the years of fury that have built up like a storm into this passionate and urgent memoir leads to her challenge to call out not only the abuse she has suffered, but the culture of abuse and misogyny that still prevails, and her demand that it be rectified and that women are able to have their voices heard.
Heyman skilfully weaves incidents of casual childhood sexual encounters of broken trust, with fleeting insulting accounts with strangers, with the indignities of a traumatic sexual assault trial at the age of twenty. She merges her adult recognition of the poverty and violence of her childhood, and her lack of role models, with her cognitive and emotional development, forged through the bruising physical labour and mental trials of her season on the trawler surrounded by rough working men. And ultimately, she discovers her inner mettle … her determination, grit, resilience and courage that enables her to fight back, to speak up and to demand a different kind of life.
This book reminds us that the traumas suffered by others in their past – and the anguish many still suffer now as a result – are often unknown to us, endured in silence and shame, but that there is yet the chance and the opportunity for any woman (or person) to overcome that shame and to remake themselves as the person they want to be, rather than settle for the person they were made to feel by others. This is a compassionate and important book, and a brave and vulnerable story.
Fury is written with the page-turning tension and drama of a novel, but we are drawn back again and again with memories of real incidents that remind us that this is a story of a life. The action, particularly the scenes of Heyman at sea as a deckhand on the Ocean Thief, energises the narrative in a thoroughly engaging way. And perhaps the most important and compelling message of this book is this: that no matter where you begin in your life and what your origin story, that does not have to define who you decide to become, or the journey you take to get there. There is hope in this story, and triumph, and satisfaction and relief, and that is what lifts this from a memoir that could be terribly distressing and sad to a story of achievement and courage.
The structure of this book is complex and interesting. The themes include sexual abuse and assault, violence, misogyny, prejudice, classism and poverty. The chapters jump backwards and forwards in time, as Heyman recounts various incidents from her childhood, her adolescence, and her life-changing experience on the fishing trawler, which all contrast sharply with her position today as a confident and well-known academic and writing mentor. As she details the events she suffered or endured as a child – particularly as a girl – and then as a young woman, ranging from verbal abuse to public humiliation to rape, the years unspool like a fiction, until we are periodically reminded that this is no fiction, this is a real-life account, a remembering, an accounting, an almost unbelievable number and degree of assaults that are all the more unsettling because they are non-fiction, and the story of one woman’s life.
Not the whole story, though, and Heyman’s redemption marks this narrative as a triumph not a tragedy. Her gradual understanding of who she is, the knowledge she gains through reading, the power she asserts through writing, the years of fury that have built up like a storm into this passionate and urgent memoir leads to her challenge to call out not only the abuse she has suffered, but the culture of abuse and misogyny that still prevails, and her demand that it be rectified and that women are able to have their voices heard.
Heyman skilfully weaves incidents of casual childhood sexual encounters of broken trust, with fleeting insulting accounts with strangers, with the indignities of a traumatic sexual assault trial at the age of twenty. She merges her adult recognition of the poverty and violence of her childhood, and her lack of role models, with her cognitive and emotional development, forged through the bruising physical labour and mental trials of her season on the trawler surrounded by rough working men. And ultimately, she discovers her inner mettle … her determination, grit, resilience and courage that enables her to fight back, to speak up and to demand a different kind of life.
This book reminds us that the traumas suffered by others in their past – and the anguish many still suffer now as a result – are often unknown to us, endured in silence and shame, but that there is yet the chance and the opportunity for any woman (or person) to overcome that shame and to remake themselves as the person they want to be, rather than settle for the person they were made to feel by others. This is a compassionate and important book, and a brave and vulnerable story.
May 22, 2021
"Because this is what you learn to do, when you are a girl walking alone. Try to stay calm but be ready to run. Like walking past wild animals, we train ourselves: Stay calm, keep your distance, don’t make him mad." Kathryn Heyman's book, Fury, is about sexual violence. Unlike many memoirs about sexual violence, there's no happy ending where a perpetrator is brought to justice. There's just a woman struggling to deal with the aftermath of being betrayed by the justice system on top of the impact of the rape itself: "I would slash that ear-ringed motherfucker across his throat, because I knew what happened when you tried to call a man out for what he’d done to you, and I knew precisely how much the world cared." As such Fury is quite a real representation of what happens to most women who attempt to find justice in the Australian court system where conviction rates sit under 15 per cent.
Like many readers, while I'm starting to find the temporal jumps in contemporary novels annoying, in Fury they make perfect sense. This memoir is about how you process and heal from trauma: "I was unbound, muddy memories emerging unbidden and unwelcome, the weight of me dropping, ready to be sorted." As Kathryn buries herself in the intensely physical work on a fishing trawler, her brain tries to place the sexual violence within the context of her life, working out where to file it amongst all the memories relating to her gender.
"How do they know we will keep our mouths closed? How do they know we will simply turn away, these men? How do they know, have always known, that I will take the mortification into myself and feel the blaze on my cheeks and keep my eyes on my feet while I walk away? Mouth closed, face burning, bile in the stomach. This is what it’s like to be a girl, to be this girl." Like most women I know, Heyman has a catalogue of experiences where men force their sexual wants and desires onto her. These experiences take Kathryn from the wild little girl who bit those she didn't like with the “certainty that her wild, hungry anger would protect her” to the broken young woman we find on a trawler in the middle of the sea.
"I’d sifted through the mud and murk of memory, had been undone and had begun to put myself back together." For Heyman, nature is the healer, plus sharing it with a group of four imperfect but at least not sexually violent men. The author's poetic prose about the things she sees while fishing in the Gulf of Carpentaria stops Fury from being a piece of tragedy porn.
Like many readers, while I'm starting to find the temporal jumps in contemporary novels annoying, in Fury they make perfect sense. This memoir is about how you process and heal from trauma: "I was unbound, muddy memories emerging unbidden and unwelcome, the weight of me dropping, ready to be sorted." As Kathryn buries herself in the intensely physical work on a fishing trawler, her brain tries to place the sexual violence within the context of her life, working out where to file it amongst all the memories relating to her gender.
"How do they know we will keep our mouths closed? How do they know we will simply turn away, these men? How do they know, have always known, that I will take the mortification into myself and feel the blaze on my cheeks and keep my eyes on my feet while I walk away? Mouth closed, face burning, bile in the stomach. This is what it’s like to be a girl, to be this girl." Like most women I know, Heyman has a catalogue of experiences where men force their sexual wants and desires onto her. These experiences take Kathryn from the wild little girl who bit those she didn't like with the “certainty that her wild, hungry anger would protect her” to the broken young woman we find on a trawler in the middle of the sea.
"I’d sifted through the mud and murk of memory, had been undone and had begun to put myself back together." For Heyman, nature is the healer, plus sharing it with a group of four imperfect but at least not sexually violent men. The author's poetic prose about the things she sees while fishing in the Gulf of Carpentaria stops Fury from being a piece of tragedy porn.
June 2, 2021
I needed to let this one sit for a while before I could review it. It had an enormous impact on me.
It is the first book I've read about a young woman who has been through a sexual assault, who's reaction felt relatable to mine.
Kathryn's experience somehow validated mine, by showing me I wasn't odd for becoming more adventurous (reckless?) after my assault. I wasn't wrong for almost needing more drama in my life to justify the self loathing mixed with outrage I felt, yet couldn't express.
It was the only way I knew how to cope, with the tools I had available at the time.
The way the narrative jumped timelines felt authentic, as it reflected her mind scrambling to make sense of the injustice she'd been through.
It felt like my brain for most of my life. Never able to sit still for long or I'd have to think too much about what had happened.
And why the people around me wanted to forget it had happened.
And why I couldn't.
This book is a heavy topic, and the sheer volume of negative experiences Kathryn had is staggering, disheartening and outrageous.
Yet, the story was powerful, hopeful and oh so important to share. Thank you Kathryn.
It is the first book I've read about a young woman who has been through a sexual assault, who's reaction felt relatable to mine.
Kathryn's experience somehow validated mine, by showing me I wasn't odd for becoming more adventurous (reckless?) after my assault. I wasn't wrong for almost needing more drama in my life to justify the self loathing mixed with outrage I felt, yet couldn't express.
It was the only way I knew how to cope, with the tools I had available at the time.
The way the narrative jumped timelines felt authentic, as it reflected her mind scrambling to make sense of the injustice she'd been through.
It felt like my brain for most of my life. Never able to sit still for long or I'd have to think too much about what had happened.
And why the people around me wanted to forget it had happened.
And why I couldn't.
This book is a heavy topic, and the sheer volume of negative experiences Kathryn had is staggering, disheartening and outrageous.
Yet, the story was powerful, hopeful and oh so important to share. Thank you Kathryn.
December 19, 2021
A memoir of growing up in hard times in small-town Australia, which also shows the ubiquity of sexual assault on girls and women. A memoir written in a non-linear fashion which makes it really interesting.
August 10, 2021
I loved this book (but trigger warning for sexual abuse.)
The writing and narration (which is also by the author) is unique and exquisite. The story is set in a fairly small timeframe, from when Kathryn left home after a serious sexual assault and hitched to a remote part of Australia where she found a job as a cook on a fishing vessel, though she had no idea how to cook. The story moves through that timeframe, which is about a year I guess, with frequent flashbacks to earlier times in her life, many of which involved sexual abuse.
She writes and narrates in the voice of a young girl with cut of jeans, off to escape her past and explore the world. There is much introspection about responsibility and blame. Young girls get drunk all the time, boys and men abuse them all the time. Who is responsible when men take what they want and girls instinctively know to stay silent? I am pleased that the culture is changing in Australia and stories like these expose the abuse and we are now putting the blame where it lies, the perpetrator.
If you are able to access it, I highly recommend the audio version, the narration perfectly conveys the author's intention that it be read in the voice of a young girl trying to find her place in the world.
The writing and narration (which is also by the author) is unique and exquisite. The story is set in a fairly small timeframe, from when Kathryn left home after a serious sexual assault and hitched to a remote part of Australia where she found a job as a cook on a fishing vessel, though she had no idea how to cook. The story moves through that timeframe, which is about a year I guess, with frequent flashbacks to earlier times in her life, many of which involved sexual abuse.
She writes and narrates in the voice of a young girl with cut of jeans, off to escape her past and explore the world. There is much introspection about responsibility and blame. Young girls get drunk all the time, boys and men abuse them all the time. Who is responsible when men take what they want and girls instinctively know to stay silent? I am pleased that the culture is changing in Australia and stories like these expose the abuse and we are now putting the blame where it lies, the perpetrator.
If you are able to access it, I highly recommend the audio version, the narration perfectly conveys the author's intention that it be read in the voice of a young girl trying to find her place in the world.
July 7, 2021
If you only read one Memoir this year let it be this one.
Kathryn's writing gave me all the feels, the following line, “anyway, it happens to girls all the time. If we talked about it every time some dick moved in on us, we’d never shut up and there would never be room for anything else.” P52 struck a chord deep in my literary heart. I clung to this line like it was my lifeline. I held it throughout the text and cradled me as I lingered on how accurate and sad it was.
Kathryn writes like a reader, portraying her journey so similar to so many others I have heard and yet so different.
In the first section, she was very explicit in outlining her trauma. She ripped off the band-aid and dove in head-first. Then the memoir does a good job slicing backwards and forwards through her timeline, before circling back in the last chapters once again to her physical trauma on the boat and the emotional trauma of her sexual assault and the trail.
Kathryn's writing gave me all the feels, the following line, “anyway, it happens to girls all the time. If we talked about it every time some dick moved in on us, we’d never shut up and there would never be room for anything else.” P52 struck a chord deep in my literary heart. I clung to this line like it was my lifeline. I held it throughout the text and cradled me as I lingered on how accurate and sad it was.
Kathryn writes like a reader, portraying her journey so similar to so many others I have heard and yet so different.
In the first section, she was very explicit in outlining her trauma. She ripped off the band-aid and dove in head-first. Then the memoir does a good job slicing backwards and forwards through her timeline, before circling back in the last chapters once again to her physical trauma on the boat and the emotional trauma of her sexual assault and the trail.
February 22, 2021
Want to feel some more blinding rage? Not angry enough already? Heyman recounts the many sexual assaults and near misses that occur in her life up to the age of 21 and how she turned to the sea to rebuild. This is also a book about class and poverty and the work, luck, character and tenacity it can take to transform.
June 17, 2021
Kathryn Heyman’s latest book Fury is a painfully honest memoir based on her experience of a serious sexual assault trial and her ensuing struggle to make sense of what happened.
Never running from her vulnerabilities and flaws, Heyman examines what it is like to be a victim of repeated male predatory sexual behaviour, the injustice of a justice system, and her experiences of a childhood characterised by neglect and violence, where the constant in her life was a search for security and the need to belong.
These are weighty themes for a book of 229 pages – slim by today’s standards – yet its sharp observations and ability to draw out the tiniest of details leave an overall impression of something much, much bigger. In an era of #MeToo, this memoir is an important read as a record of what just one woman endured. Imagine how many others there are with similar, yet unique experiences, who have no ability to voice them at all. At least Heyman has words, something she has always drawn comfort from.
True to a writer’s feel for story, Heyman’s memoir reads like fiction. Descriptions are intensely sharp and clear, arising from a heightened awareness that she existed on the periphery, always trying ‘to be the girl who fits’. Deftly moving between past and present tense, she creates tension and suspense, and fast forwards between backstory and the terrifying season working as a deckhand on Ocean Thief, a trawler in the Timor Sea. Just why she came to be on the boat in the first place is explained in harrowing and sad detail as she mines her own life for answers to her neglected childhood where she had ‘no people’; what happened on the night that ended with her in a police station, intoxicated and without wearing her French knickers, starting to doubt what she’d just been through; and a lack of support from those around her. Trawling nets on the sea bed, with the silt ‘churning, loosening, unravelling’, she found memories she had buried long ago were now surfacing:
‘…memories were swirling up at me. I had no where to put them but on the page, trying to wrestle them back to silence, back to invisibility, where I’d kept them for so many years.’
It’s fascinating, then, that her search for comfort and safety, to start afresh and ‘make a different story’ takes her to water, where the danger of sharks and drowning lurk below and the threat of storms, above. So terrifying was one storm that remembering it turns her stomach ‘to liquid years, decades, later’.
But above all, Fury is Heyman’s own story. Characters populate the pages, such as her hard-working mother, who, when she’d finished her shifts, just wanted to rest. She keeps tightly to her version of events and does not attempt to involve others outside of keeping them as an accompanist to her own experiences.
Yet despite the sadness of her poverty stricken and traumatic childhood, what is admirable is that at no point does Heyman apportion blame. The beauty of this story is its honest vulnerability and that she is refreshingly open about not being perfect. She sticks closely to recording what happened – and in wonderful, vibrant, stark detail, for she is a novelist above all else. She tells her story without revenge, making no apology and not asking for you to feel sorry for her. In doing so, she asks the crucial question, ‘Did I have to be an innocent to be innocent?’
Never running from her vulnerabilities and flaws, Heyman examines what it is like to be a victim of repeated male predatory sexual behaviour, the injustice of a justice system, and her experiences of a childhood characterised by neglect and violence, where the constant in her life was a search for security and the need to belong.
These are weighty themes for a book of 229 pages – slim by today’s standards – yet its sharp observations and ability to draw out the tiniest of details leave an overall impression of something much, much bigger. In an era of #MeToo, this memoir is an important read as a record of what just one woman endured. Imagine how many others there are with similar, yet unique experiences, who have no ability to voice them at all. At least Heyman has words, something she has always drawn comfort from.
True to a writer’s feel for story, Heyman’s memoir reads like fiction. Descriptions are intensely sharp and clear, arising from a heightened awareness that she existed on the periphery, always trying ‘to be the girl who fits’. Deftly moving between past and present tense, she creates tension and suspense, and fast forwards between backstory and the terrifying season working as a deckhand on Ocean Thief, a trawler in the Timor Sea. Just why she came to be on the boat in the first place is explained in harrowing and sad detail as she mines her own life for answers to her neglected childhood where she had ‘no people’; what happened on the night that ended with her in a police station, intoxicated and without wearing her French knickers, starting to doubt what she’d just been through; and a lack of support from those around her. Trawling nets on the sea bed, with the silt ‘churning, loosening, unravelling’, she found memories she had buried long ago were now surfacing:
‘…memories were swirling up at me. I had no where to put them but on the page, trying to wrestle them back to silence, back to invisibility, where I’d kept them for so many years.’
It’s fascinating, then, that her search for comfort and safety, to start afresh and ‘make a different story’ takes her to water, where the danger of sharks and drowning lurk below and the threat of storms, above. So terrifying was one storm that remembering it turns her stomach ‘to liquid years, decades, later’.
But above all, Fury is Heyman’s own story. Characters populate the pages, such as her hard-working mother, who, when she’d finished her shifts, just wanted to rest. She keeps tightly to her version of events and does not attempt to involve others outside of keeping them as an accompanist to her own experiences.
Yet despite the sadness of her poverty stricken and traumatic childhood, what is admirable is that at no point does Heyman apportion blame. The beauty of this story is its honest vulnerability and that she is refreshingly open about not being perfect. She sticks closely to recording what happened – and in wonderful, vibrant, stark detail, for she is a novelist above all else. She tells her story without revenge, making no apology and not asking for you to feel sorry for her. In doing so, she asks the crucial question, ‘Did I have to be an innocent to be innocent?’
May 13, 2021
FURY – by KATHRYN HEYMAN
The first thing I couldn’t help but notice about this book was that there were thirteen extremely favourable reviews at the front……all written by women!
That this book deals with a rape case is what is probably responsible for that scenario. However, the cover picture of seagulls on a stormy sea also reveals an awful lot about her life, inasmuch as how and why she ended up there on the open ocean and what it did to shape her life.
It seems to be a modern trend in writing these days that you bounce all over the place in terms of time line and this book excels in that regard, jumping around like an eight year old on a pogo stick. You just get into a rhythm of place and time then suddenly you’re elsewhere and who knows where you’ll be going to next.
Historically, for me, the rape came about because of what she witnessed and what happened in her childhood. Her father was a wife basher, step father an alcoholic, she’d already had some disgusting experiences with men. No wonder then that she spent one year smoking dope and was a consistent consumer of alcohol. Straight away you can imagine the complications coming from that scenario. It shaped her life and led to some paths that those with a different upbringing would be most unlikely to choose.
The fact that she grew up in Boolaroo, the next suburb to my home town, created extra incentive as I read on.
Apparently she can recall incidences in her life as far back as when she was three years old, which puts her into an extremely unlikely category, though perhaps creative writing, which she teaches, has something to do with that.
Her descriptive style is wonderful and captivating which is undoubtedly why everyone’s on her bandwagon. You can’t help but feel you’re in the picture, particularly on the trawler, getting wet, hauling in the nets and hearing the sea constantly slapping the boat, not to mention suffering through a tempestuous storm.
How she ended up in Oxford and is now Honorary Professor of Humanities at Newcastle is not delved into in this volume and, for me, that’s why I sort of felt cheated when Fury finished. I enjoyed it immensely but felt there was so much left unsaid.
The first thing I couldn’t help but notice about this book was that there were thirteen extremely favourable reviews at the front……all written by women!
That this book deals with a rape case is what is probably responsible for that scenario. However, the cover picture of seagulls on a stormy sea also reveals an awful lot about her life, inasmuch as how and why she ended up there on the open ocean and what it did to shape her life.
It seems to be a modern trend in writing these days that you bounce all over the place in terms of time line and this book excels in that regard, jumping around like an eight year old on a pogo stick. You just get into a rhythm of place and time then suddenly you’re elsewhere and who knows where you’ll be going to next.
Historically, for me, the rape came about because of what she witnessed and what happened in her childhood. Her father was a wife basher, step father an alcoholic, she’d already had some disgusting experiences with men. No wonder then that she spent one year smoking dope and was a consistent consumer of alcohol. Straight away you can imagine the complications coming from that scenario. It shaped her life and led to some paths that those with a different upbringing would be most unlikely to choose.
The fact that she grew up in Boolaroo, the next suburb to my home town, created extra incentive as I read on.
Apparently she can recall incidences in her life as far back as when she was three years old, which puts her into an extremely unlikely category, though perhaps creative writing, which she teaches, has something to do with that.
Her descriptive style is wonderful and captivating which is undoubtedly why everyone’s on her bandwagon. You can’t help but feel you’re in the picture, particularly on the trawler, getting wet, hauling in the nets and hearing the sea constantly slapping the boat, not to mention suffering through a tempestuous storm.
How she ended up in Oxford and is now Honorary Professor of Humanities at Newcastle is not delved into in this volume and, for me, that’s why I sort of felt cheated when Fury finished. I enjoyed it immensely but felt there was so much left unsaid.
July 20, 2021
Fury, a memoir by Kathryn Heyman, seized my attention from the start. In the initial scene, Heyman presents her younger self standing on the boom of a fishing trawler, lashed by waves in a life-threatening storm in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Her use of sensory language was so effective, it made me feel seasick.
The memoir tells the story of how as a twenty-year-old, Kathryn hitchhiked north to the top of Australia to escape her past. My heart was in my mouth as she took risk after risk until the opportunity to join the crew of a fishing trawler presented itself. Her voyage on the trawler turned out to be both a test and a turning point.
Heyman’s observations of people she meets are often very funny. She describes truck drivers, deckhands and skippers, a whole range of Northern Territory characters who, like her, are running away from something. The first meal she produced as a cook on the trawler is an hilarious scene.
My only quibble is with the title. Fury seems too strong a work for the dominant emotion I encountered in this book. The younger Kathryn Heyman comes across as more adventurous, curious, and savvy than the current title suggests. Ultimately, this memoir is a celebration of the author’s ability to recover from trauma and remake herself through story telling.
The memoir tells the story of how as a twenty-year-old, Kathryn hitchhiked north to the top of Australia to escape her past. My heart was in my mouth as she took risk after risk until the opportunity to join the crew of a fishing trawler presented itself. Her voyage on the trawler turned out to be both a test and a turning point.
Heyman’s observations of people she meets are often very funny. She describes truck drivers, deckhands and skippers, a whole range of Northern Territory characters who, like her, are running away from something. The first meal she produced as a cook on the trawler is an hilarious scene.
My only quibble is with the title. Fury seems too strong a work for the dominant emotion I encountered in this book. The younger Kathryn Heyman comes across as more adventurous, curious, and savvy than the current title suggests. Ultimately, this memoir is a celebration of the author’s ability to recover from trauma and remake herself through story telling.
November 10, 2025
Masterful writing.
Which makes it possible to stomach our corrupt justice system, and the many vile Australian men who perpetrate sexual abuse in this true story.
The plotting, pace, characters, place, unique use of language, are flawless. It’s non-linear yet never confusing, and sensually rich: a storyworld you can feel under your fingertips. The physical book itself published by Allen and Unwin in 2021 is high-quality, which I appreciated.
In Fury, our protagonist learns to claim and direct her own life, as Heyman certainly has. What an impressive literary force she is. The story also serves as an indictment of how the (male) public treats its vulnerable members.
So little care. So much taking. A few good souls. That second kind taxi driver. Though shouldn’t that be normal and expected behaviour, to help?
There are harsh messages here, and hopeful ones. Harsh: if you don’t know how to respect yourself due to never having been taught or shown respect, prepare for the feeding frenzy. There are parasites among us. Hopeful: books save lives. And nature can save your life. The ocean’s fury churning with yours.
I enjoyed her naming and returning the blame appropriately to the perpetrators, including a snobbish friend in later years, who treated her differently after learning she had a lower-class upbringing.
A tough read. If you love good writing, worth it.
Which makes it possible to stomach our corrupt justice system, and the many vile Australian men who perpetrate sexual abuse in this true story.
The plotting, pace, characters, place, unique use of language, are flawless. It’s non-linear yet never confusing, and sensually rich: a storyworld you can feel under your fingertips. The physical book itself published by Allen and Unwin in 2021 is high-quality, which I appreciated.
In Fury, our protagonist learns to claim and direct her own life, as Heyman certainly has. What an impressive literary force she is. The story also serves as an indictment of how the (male) public treats its vulnerable members.
So little care. So much taking. A few good souls. That second kind taxi driver. Though shouldn’t that be normal and expected behaviour, to help?
There are harsh messages here, and hopeful ones. Harsh: if you don’t know how to respect yourself due to never having been taught or shown respect, prepare for the feeding frenzy. There are parasites among us. Hopeful: books save lives. And nature can save your life. The ocean’s fury churning with yours.
I enjoyed her naming and returning the blame appropriately to the perpetrators, including a snobbish friend in later years, who treated her differently after learning she had a lower-class upbringing.
A tough read. If you love good writing, worth it.
May 13, 2024
I enjoyed this book which is well written but does come across a bit if a misery memoire which is a bit rich of me as I chose to read it for precisely this reason . It cuts between three turning points in her life, being raped by a taxi driver and the ensuing trial, her becoming a cook on a fishing boat risking life and limb to find herself after a load trip across Australia, and finally key moments of her childhood, which she witnessed domestic violence and poverty, but found solace in books. The most revealing aspect for me was the casual sexism and misogyny depicted in this book - It's quite disturbing . I would have liked a bit more information on her family - She is quite dismissive of her mum and her sister barley gets a mention - It's like they are estranged, but she does not say - Also she does really reckless things, - that does not mean she deserves any of the abuse that she suffered, but she doesn't' address it. Also it would have been better if there was a section on how she became a writer - I've read other books eg 'Educated' that manage to do that.
May 11, 2021
Decided to read this after hearing Kathryn on Saturday Live (BBC Radio 4). This isn't a "misery" memoir but it reiterates the mysogynistic structure of society and the way patriarchy undermines girls and women's safety with conditional belief, especially in the case of sexual assault. So certainly not an easy read at times. Kathryn Heyman has a poor and hard upbringing but the book details how she finds a "safe" place to build/rebuild herself at 20. It's well written and although she jumps about chronologically this is done by the author in real time as she reviews her past and how it led to her ending up on a fishing trawler! I think she saves herself through her intellect and general love of words, books and writing and it was nice to learn how she's now a very successful writer and educator. I think I'll try some of her fiction.
June 10, 2021
Boys and men would recognise much in the world of this memoir. They would also discover what might otherwise be lost to them - the perspective of a girl. This is the story of one who started out rising above school girl put-downs by emulating Jack Kerouac. Hitchhiking and free wheeling, she was hopefully one of the guys rather than a girly girl. Her early attempts to enter into the easy bonding of males ran foul when she was bullied and abused by boys who shamed her hitchhiking as rape bait. Ironically, when she was raped and discarded it was not by an easy rider but a taxi-driver. With men, she risked her body, first to sexual abuse, then to hard and dangerous labour. Leaving town after the brutal sexual assault trial, she found uneasy refuge in the company of men, on a fishing trawler where she grew tough and discovered freedom. A woman's book, highly recommended for men.
August 1, 2021
A brave and wonderful memoir about growing up battling in an Aussie country town, then suffering a horrendous sexual attack just when you are embracing life - then fighting to go beyond it to become who you are meant to be. It inspired me how gutsy the young Kathryn was, and the fight she made to not let a violent trauma, that was also mismanaged by the police and legal system, define or confine her. Her bravery, the sheer force of will she exuded is staggering. I was so there with her, feeling the rawness, willing her on, wanting her to find a gentler place. I didn’t want her story to end when it did… I wanted to know where she ended up and how she found her place in life, where the fury exists now. The story telling is wonderful, but not linear and whilst I loved the dives back into her childhood at times I found the shifts and jumps a tad awkward.
July 30, 2021
This is such a well-written book, so carefully structured and so controlled. All memoirs are constructions, and the more skilled ones go beyond chronology, as this one does. Here is a writer who knows her craft. It is a reflection on class, femaleness, sexuality, the power of story and the narratives we tell ourselves. It has emotional rawness and fidelity, but it is also lyrical and evocative in its descriptions. There is a slow-burning fury, but because she has moved beyond it and can look back, there is also forgiveness and tenderness for herself. This book was so much more than I expected it to be.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2021/07/30/...
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2021/07/30/...
January 12, 2023
This book is testament to the inner strength and fire of women who don’t even know they possess such power. Kathryn had the gift of words to make her life heard through pages, for those without words or strong voices, to rise up and crush those cruel and disgraceful men who were ignorant in thinking they had any right over the body of a women. My heart broke for Kathryn reading her book, but ultimately I found my self cheering her on and feeling proud to know women are finding their way, in spite of trauma and circumstances out of their control. Despite the odds Kathryn survived and lived to tell her story, which no doubt echoes many girls stories past and present. An absolute roller coaster of a read. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
July 4, 2021
Beautifully written, I even felt seasick when Heyman was describing life on the trawler. She does jump around a lot in the narrative, which can be disorientating, but perhaps that is part of a reflection of her story? Disorientated growing up, her assault, court, judgement, family, how to navigate life - or not. Brave for sharing her story. What a unique story - cook on a trawler off Darwin??? In losing herself, she also found herself. Another woman opening up around her experiences around men, and how men don't think what they do is wrong, or if they do, they don't care, women are 'collateral damage'.
August 12, 2021
I read this gripping memoir of girlhood and grit in just over 24 hours, unable to put it down. Heyman is a true wordsmith; her writing is absolutely beautiful and her story is compelling. There's a lot to be said for the transcendent and healing powers of hard yakka and the natural world. However, I did try to rush through the sections describing hauling up and sorting ocean catches because I have a very strong antipathy towards trawling (or any fishing, really). Heyman's self-destructive young self reminded me very much of the protagonist of The Inland Sea, but this was so much more moving.
November 16, 2025
Heyman brings all of her well-honed fiction-writing skills to bear in her powerful memoir, Fury. This was a stand out for me this year.
Reeling from a chaotic and insecure childhood and the trauma of an assault and subsequent trial, she hitchikes across Australia and takes a job as a cook and deckhand on a fishing trawler. She is forced to reckon with the tempestuous sea and nefarious forces on board, to reinvent herself as the victor. It’s a book about male power, survival, forgiveness and redemption. The back-and-forth timeline was so clever as it matched her peripatetic lifestyle. This was a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me.
Reeling from a chaotic and insecure childhood and the trauma of an assault and subsequent trial, she hitchikes across Australia and takes a job as a cook and deckhand on a fishing trawler. She is forced to reckon with the tempestuous sea and nefarious forces on board, to reinvent herself as the victor. It’s a book about male power, survival, forgiveness and redemption. The back-and-forth timeline was so clever as it matched her peripatetic lifestyle. This was a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me.
June 15, 2021
When I heard Kathryn speak at Antipodes in Sorrento, she said that narrating her story for audio brought about the question, who was there for her? Who was looking out for her? And can I tell you, that’s what I wanted to scream every time Kathryn let’s us in on her secrets in this powerful memoir. Who were these people to treat a child the was their did? Where were the people who are meant to protect her… us? Kathryn is a tower of strength and I applaud her for taking this leap when she was ready.
June 21, 2021
Every woman will recognise pieces of themselves and the reality of life as a girl in Kathryn Heyman’s unforgettable memoir Fury. Yes, feeling appalled and heartsick is part of the reading experience and brace for your own fury at what was done to Heyman and countless young girls just like her, but her wonderful, irrepressible spirit and the deep well of her humanity and talent will soothe the reader’s wounds as well as Heyman’s own. I have long admired Heyman as a writer, teacher, mentor and fellow (flawed and feisty) female and I loved this memoir with all my heart.
April 1, 2023
A memoir of a traumatic sexual assault, and the changes the author wanted to make in her life after. She became a deckhand on a fishing trawler in the Timor Sea, and this experience had a profound affect on her. She was a child brought up in poverty and violence. Her policeman father abused her mother, until she finally left him. The author herself also suffered sexual abuse as a child, a teenager and a young woman. After the rape her behaviour became self destructive, taking unnecessary risks and engaging in risky sexual encounters until she worked on the fishing trawler.
July 18, 2021
A stunning memoir evoking the trauma of sexual violence meted out in minor and major acts from girlhood through to adulthood. The attendant effects on mind, body and soul.
A reminder that our society still has a long way to go to make women and girls feel safe.
The ending was beautiful in its openness. A courageous and beautifully written book.
A reminder that our society still has a long way to go to make women and girls feel safe.
The ending was beautiful in its openness. A courageous and beautifully written book.
November 16, 2021
I enjoyed this read. If "enjoyed" is the most appropriate word...perhaps not.
It is a brave memoir. I liked its rawness and courage.
The memoir was a little different to what I normally read.
I found parts of it painfully real, challenging, touching and well written, uplifting.
Thank you Kathryn......
It is a brave memoir. I liked its rawness and courage.
The memoir was a little different to what I normally read.
I found parts of it painfully real, challenging, touching and well written, uplifting.
Thank you Kathryn......
June 30, 2021
Amazing. This book was so good I banned myself from reading it at night as I couldn't stop reading. Just wanted more, the last page came too soon.
Every male should read this book to understand how smutty male behaviour effected and still effects us.
Every male should read this book to understand how smutty male behaviour effected and still effects us.
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