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Nest
Once an artist and teacher, Jen now spends her time watching the birds around her house and tending her lush sub-tropical garden near the small town where she grew up. The only person she sees regularly is Henry, who comes after school for drawing lessons.
When a girl in Henry's class goes missing, Jen is pulled back into the depths of her own past. When she was Henry's age she lost her father and her best friend Michael - both within a week. The whole town talked about it then, and now, nearly forty years later, they're talking about it again.
Everyone is waiting - for the girl to be found and the summer rain to arrive. At last, when the answers do come, like the wet, it is in a drenching, revitalising downpour.
When a girl in Henry's class goes missing, Jen is pulled back into the depths of her own past. When she was Henry's age she lost her father and her best friend Michael - both within a week. The whole town talked about it then, and now, nearly forty years later, they're talking about it again.
Everyone is waiting - for the girl to be found and the summer rain to arrive. At last, when the answers do come, like the wet, it is in a drenching, revitalising downpour.
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First published July 1, 2014
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About the author
Inga Simpson
19 books276 followersInga is the award-winning author of THE THINNING, WILLOWMAN, THE LAST WOMAN IN THE WORLD, THE BOOK OF AUSTRALIAN TREES, UNDERSTORY: a life with trees, WHERE THE TREES WERE, NEST and MR WIGG.
A novelist and nature writer, her work explores our relationship with the natural world.
Inga grew up in central west NSW, and has lived in Canberra, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. She is now based on the far south coast of NSW.
WILLOWMAN was shortlisted for the Bookpeople adult fiction Book of the Year 2023.
UNDERSTORY: a life with trees (2017), Inga's first book-length work of nature writing, was shortlisted for the Adelaide Writers Week prize for nonfiction.
WHERE THE TREES WERE (2016) was shortlisted for an Indie Award, and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, ABIA book awards and Green Carnation Prize.
NEST (2014) was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal, and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize.
Her debut novel, MR WIGG, was selected for the 2011 QWC/Hachette manuscript developemnt program and, as a result, published by Hachette in 2013. MR WIGG was shortlisted for an Indie Award and longlisted for the Dobbie Award.
In 2012, Inga was the winner of the final Eric Rolls nature essay prize.
She has a PhDs in creative writing and English literature, and her short work has been published in Griffith Review, Wonderground, the Review of Australian Fiction, Clues, WQ, and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
A novelist and nature writer, her work explores our relationship with the natural world.
Inga grew up in central west NSW, and has lived in Canberra, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. She is now based on the far south coast of NSW.
WILLOWMAN was shortlisted for the Bookpeople adult fiction Book of the Year 2023.
UNDERSTORY: a life with trees (2017), Inga's first book-length work of nature writing, was shortlisted for the Adelaide Writers Week prize for nonfiction.
WHERE THE TREES WERE (2016) was shortlisted for an Indie Award, and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, ABIA book awards and Green Carnation Prize.
NEST (2014) was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal, and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize.
Her debut novel, MR WIGG, was selected for the 2011 QWC/Hachette manuscript developemnt program and, as a result, published by Hachette in 2013. MR WIGG was shortlisted for an Indie Award and longlisted for the Dobbie Award.
In 2012, Inga was the winner of the final Eric Rolls nature essay prize.
She has a PhDs in creative writing and English literature, and her short work has been published in Griffith Review, Wonderground, the Review of Australian Fiction, Clues, WQ, and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 157 reviews
December 17, 2015
Jen decides to travel back to Queensland after a relationship breakdown. The house she bought was nothing fancy in fact, it was quite the opposite it was dilapidated and neglected, but that never bothered Jen. Just being back in the area where she grew up was all she cared about. Jen loved her surroundings, it was peaceful, which is just what she needed.
The only person Jen sees regularly is young Henry. Henry visits Jen after school for drawing lessons. One day during a lesson Henry informs Jen about the girl who has gone missing in his class. As soon as Jen hears about the missing girl she immediately has thoughts of the time when she was twelve years old when she lost her father and best friend Michael within the same week. Now, nearly forty years on, it seems Jen is not the only one who remembers this time. A lot of the locals also remember and it seems to be the talk of the town once again. In the meantime Queensland was experiencing a high temperature wave. Things were drying up fast for Jen on her property and she was beginning to run out of water rather quickly. Like everyone else she was waiting for the wet season to start out, but would it arrive in time and will Henry's friend be found?
What a beautiful, beautiful read this was. The descriptions throughout this story are truly amazing. Highly recommended.
The only person Jen sees regularly is young Henry. Henry visits Jen after school for drawing lessons. One day during a lesson Henry informs Jen about the girl who has gone missing in his class. As soon as Jen hears about the missing girl she immediately has thoughts of the time when she was twelve years old when she lost her father and best friend Michael within the same week. Now, nearly forty years on, it seems Jen is not the only one who remembers this time. A lot of the locals also remember and it seems to be the talk of the town once again. In the meantime Queensland was experiencing a high temperature wave. Things were drying up fast for Jen on her property and she was beginning to run out of water rather quickly. Like everyone else she was waiting for the wet season to start out, but would it arrive in time and will Henry's friend be found?
What a beautiful, beautiful read this was. The descriptions throughout this story are truly amazing. Highly recommended.
December 23, 2014
Very soothing and gentle, which is something to keep in mind if you're thinking of reading this - I think you have to be in the mood, and it's a more appropriate read for summer than winter. The opening chapters set up a dual mystery, with the present-day disappearance of a schoolgirl mirroring events in protagonist Jen's childhood. But the vast majority of the book is given over to lush and detailed descriptions of the flora and wildlife surrounding Jen's home. While beautifully expressive, these are nothing more than what they seem - there's no deeper symbolism than simply an appreciation of the beauty and diversity of nature. Consequently, unless this is really what you want to read, the book drags, and it really doesn't have much of a plot. I would perhaps have appreciated this more if I had read it on a lazy summer holiday, or chosen it specifically because I wanted to read something that focused on nature - Simpson's writing is impressive but the story is, unfortunately, dull.
April 14, 2015
Inga Simpson writes as beautifully in this book as she did in Mr Wigg. It is more like a diary of daily events than a story, although the reader does discover some of the main character's history along the way and there is some added mystery in the disappearances of two children. I enjoyed a lot of this book but occasionally felt there was a little too much description of Jen's activities. Maybe not really my kind of book but still a very pleasant read.
July 26, 2014
Jen had felt the artist within her for her whole life – nature and the wild spoke to her in a way no human being ever had. After spending four years at art school she moved on to teaching. But now she had returned to her roots, to the area in Queensland where she was a child. She had bought an old home, rundown and ramshackle, but somehow hers. The bush, the beautiful birds, the other creatures on her semi tropical property – all calmed her, soothed her. The little room she called her studio was filled with work both past and current that she was working on, trying to find that unique touch to bring the pages to life.
Her Aunt Sophie lived a few hours away, but the person she saw the most was Henry, a primary school student who came once a week for drawing lessons. She would bake for Henry each week; scones, cake, cupcakes – they would drink sweet milky tea with her latest offering before starting work. But one day Henry told of a school friend, Caitlin, who had gone missing. She had vanished after school the day before – the horror for Jen was that her best friend Michael had vanished in similar circumstances when she had been twelve; he had never been found. That same week Jen’s father had walked out on her and her mother as well…
With Queensland’s summer heat at its highest, Jen and the community were waiting for the wet season to begin. It was late this year – she was running low on water, her garden, her herbs and vegetables were wilting. The creek was just a trickle, the birds sat with their beaks open, gasping, with their wings spread to hopefully pick up a lingering breeze; everything was suffering in the long dry season. How much longer would they all have to wait for the wet season to arrive?
I am totally blown away by Aussie author Inga Simpson’s way with words! I chose a couple of sections to demonstrate:
The leaves were still bright green, its heart still sap-filled and rebellious, as if it did not yet know it was dead. (55%)
The trees were lathering themselves, soapy suds running down their trunks and foaming at the base. Their tannins doubled as a washing agent; the trees were taking the opportunity to bathe. (83%)
I found this book completely divine. The writing, the descriptions, the whole book resonated with me immensely. I have no hesitation in recommending Nest highly to everyone. It is a must read!
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.
Her Aunt Sophie lived a few hours away, but the person she saw the most was Henry, a primary school student who came once a week for drawing lessons. She would bake for Henry each week; scones, cake, cupcakes – they would drink sweet milky tea with her latest offering before starting work. But one day Henry told of a school friend, Caitlin, who had gone missing. She had vanished after school the day before – the horror for Jen was that her best friend Michael had vanished in similar circumstances when she had been twelve; he had never been found. That same week Jen’s father had walked out on her and her mother as well…
With Queensland’s summer heat at its highest, Jen and the community were waiting for the wet season to begin. It was late this year – she was running low on water, her garden, her herbs and vegetables were wilting. The creek was just a trickle, the birds sat with their beaks open, gasping, with their wings spread to hopefully pick up a lingering breeze; everything was suffering in the long dry season. How much longer would they all have to wait for the wet season to arrive?
I am totally blown away by Aussie author Inga Simpson’s way with words! I chose a couple of sections to demonstrate:
The leaves were still bright green, its heart still sap-filled and rebellious, as if it did not yet know it was dead. (55%)
The trees were lathering themselves, soapy suds running down their trunks and foaming at the base. Their tannins doubled as a washing agent; the trees were taking the opportunity to bathe. (83%)
I found this book completely divine. The writing, the descriptions, the whole book resonated with me immensely. I have no hesitation in recommending Nest highly to everyone. It is a must read!
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.
September 28, 2014
Review: the short version (without all the gorgeous prose quotes). I loved this book. I am going to buy my own copy! It is filled with beautiful prose but also has a great plot and a marvellous central character. I want to know what happened after that: did Jen ever get in touch with Stan? Did the ornithologist turn up? Did he like her nest? This is a beautiful book. I will get Inga Simpson’s next book without any hesitation. Read it!
The longer version:
“…the moments that most change your life, you never see coming. Your position, from deep within the movement – the shift itself – does not permit a clear view.”
Nest is the second novel by Australian author, Inga Simpson. In retreat from a fractured relationship, and the loss of her mother, Jen Vogel returns to the Queensland coastal hinterland town of her childhood. Once an artist and teacher, she now tries to live in harmony with her environment, on the edge of the forest, surrounded by her beloved birds, her inspiration: “Sometimes pencil on paper was a magical thing – and birds flew out. Other times they were just marks, her hand an inadequate tool”…… “How could she hope to draw such weightlessness, such grace, such joy.” Weekly visits by young Henry Green for an art lesson punctuate her solitary existence and deliver regular contact with the outside world. When a classmate of Henry’s goes missing, the talk in town immediately recalls her father’s mysterious desertion some 40 years earlier, following shortly after the disappearance of Jen’s close friend, Michael. As Jen is forced to remember the events of that fateful year, interactions with certain townspeople and her elderly aunt gradually reveal a shocking truth.
Simpson gives the reader a wonderful central character. Jen is complex and multi-dimensional, and her thoughts and feelings are beautifully conveyed: “For all her years of striving to see like a bird, be like a bird, in the end she was only a lumpy human. And not an especially gifted one at that. She was barely coping on the ground, let alone going to fly, and there was nothing as sad as a bird without wings” or “Now she was just a husk of a woman. Orphaned. Childless. Little more than bone and sinew and skin. Without feathers to hide beneath or a song to sing” show only singular aspects of a character the reader will come to love. Jen’s interaction with Henry is charming and uplifting. Her sweet memories of her father are tempered by the injury of his departure. Jen is a character that readers would be pleased to follow further.
Simpson’s plot contains enough intrigue to keep the pages turning and touches on both topical and age-old themes: the effect of missing persons on those left behind; the stigma attached to the deserted woman; the cause and effect of climate change; the power of religious cults; and the damage wreaked by introduced species. Her extensive research on both bird and plant species is apparent in every paragraph, her love of nature stands out and there are also some interesting tidbits on weeds, chainsaws, drawing and forests.
Simpson’s novel is filled with so much beautiful prose, it is difficult to pick just a few quotes to illustrate this: “…the flaking trunks of paperbarks, shedding stories” and “The kookaburras began their telegraph chorus, passing their gossip and joy along the line until Jen could no longer hear it” and “Their knowledge of the seasons was passed down with a strength and certainty that belied their hollow bones and tiny hearts” are a small sample to whet the prospective reader’s appetite.
Simpson’s skill with words echoes that of Jen’s with her pencils or brushes: the reader almost hears the sounds of the wet sclerophyll forest (“At first it had been distracting to hear so many birds while drawing another, like trying to recall the tune of a song when something else was playing. Now, though, they all chattered away as one community, from the same songbook.”), smells the forest’s fragrance, feels the dampness, or the drought (“Her skin was dry and itchy, wanting to flake off like the bark of spotted gums outside. Not that she was lucky enough to have a smooth new version of herself waiting underneath..”) Her descriptions of bathing birds will make the reader want a bird bath outside their own kitchen window; her descriptions of Jen’s artwork will make the reader want to see it for themselves.
Emma Kelly has enhanced the wonderful text with a beautifully evocative cover illustration. Fans of Mr Wigg will not be disappointed with Nest, and will look forward to more from this talented author. A superb read.
The longer version:
“…the moments that most change your life, you never see coming. Your position, from deep within the movement – the shift itself – does not permit a clear view.”
Nest is the second novel by Australian author, Inga Simpson. In retreat from a fractured relationship, and the loss of her mother, Jen Vogel returns to the Queensland coastal hinterland town of her childhood. Once an artist and teacher, she now tries to live in harmony with her environment, on the edge of the forest, surrounded by her beloved birds, her inspiration: “Sometimes pencil on paper was a magical thing – and birds flew out. Other times they were just marks, her hand an inadequate tool”…… “How could she hope to draw such weightlessness, such grace, such joy.” Weekly visits by young Henry Green for an art lesson punctuate her solitary existence and deliver regular contact with the outside world. When a classmate of Henry’s goes missing, the talk in town immediately recalls her father’s mysterious desertion some 40 years earlier, following shortly after the disappearance of Jen’s close friend, Michael. As Jen is forced to remember the events of that fateful year, interactions with certain townspeople and her elderly aunt gradually reveal a shocking truth.
Simpson gives the reader a wonderful central character. Jen is complex and multi-dimensional, and her thoughts and feelings are beautifully conveyed: “For all her years of striving to see like a bird, be like a bird, in the end she was only a lumpy human. And not an especially gifted one at that. She was barely coping on the ground, let alone going to fly, and there was nothing as sad as a bird without wings” or “Now she was just a husk of a woman. Orphaned. Childless. Little more than bone and sinew and skin. Without feathers to hide beneath or a song to sing” show only singular aspects of a character the reader will come to love. Jen’s interaction with Henry is charming and uplifting. Her sweet memories of her father are tempered by the injury of his departure. Jen is a character that readers would be pleased to follow further.
Simpson’s plot contains enough intrigue to keep the pages turning and touches on both topical and age-old themes: the effect of missing persons on those left behind; the stigma attached to the deserted woman; the cause and effect of climate change; the power of religious cults; and the damage wreaked by introduced species. Her extensive research on both bird and plant species is apparent in every paragraph, her love of nature stands out and there are also some interesting tidbits on weeds, chainsaws, drawing and forests.
Simpson’s novel is filled with so much beautiful prose, it is difficult to pick just a few quotes to illustrate this: “…the flaking trunks of paperbarks, shedding stories” and “The kookaburras began their telegraph chorus, passing their gossip and joy along the line until Jen could no longer hear it” and “Their knowledge of the seasons was passed down with a strength and certainty that belied their hollow bones and tiny hearts” are a small sample to whet the prospective reader’s appetite.
Simpson’s skill with words echoes that of Jen’s with her pencils or brushes: the reader almost hears the sounds of the wet sclerophyll forest (“At first it had been distracting to hear so many birds while drawing another, like trying to recall the tune of a song when something else was playing. Now, though, they all chattered away as one community, from the same songbook.”), smells the forest’s fragrance, feels the dampness, or the drought (“Her skin was dry and itchy, wanting to flake off like the bark of spotted gums outside. Not that she was lucky enough to have a smooth new version of herself waiting underneath..”) Her descriptions of bathing birds will make the reader want a bird bath outside their own kitchen window; her descriptions of Jen’s artwork will make the reader want to see it for themselves.
Emma Kelly has enhanced the wonderful text with a beautifully evocative cover illustration. Fans of Mr Wigg will not be disappointed with Nest, and will look forward to more from this talented author. A superb read.
January 24, 2021
Another marvellous book from an author with a amazing talent for portraying the unique nature of Australia.
In this flawlessly written narrative the main human character is an artist who has returned to her small childhood town, somewhere on the Sunshine coast hinterlands. I say main 'human' character because the Australian bush, with it's trees and birds are for me, in fact the main characters. The main character, Jen, is an artist who paints and draws birds and while she taught art for many years by returning to this town and living frugally she is able to be a painter with only a single art student, Henry, who comes for after school drawing lessons.
Jen spends most of her time watching the birds that live around her house and maintaining the small, steep plot of bush that, as with most Australian bush, teems with weeds and threatens to overcome her house.
When a classmate of Henry's disappears, it brings back all the bad time in Jen's own childhood when her best friend at school disappeared, never to be found, at around the same time Jan's father left her and her mother, never to be seen again.
However anyone looking for a thriller or a murder mystery should walk past this one! There is no 'thrill' unless you are into trees and birds - so, of course, I found it deeply thrilling because books that do this sort of thing are so very rare. The mystery parts, yes there are resolutions to the father thing and the missing children, but it is a mild, pretty far removed resolution.
The human drams are more of a narrative backbone for the far more interesting, vivid and exciting descriptions of the natural world. The fight with the Singapore daisy will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to keep are garden in Queensland and the delightful descriptions of the yellow robins charmed me. The scrubwren that built her nest in the asparagus fern's pot seem way more significant (to us) than why exactly Jen's father left, though that meshed perfectly with the plot.
The writing style is distinctive, and similar to the less fictionised Understory: a life with trees by the same author. I say 'less fictionised' because Understory is the narrative of how the author and her partner bought and lived in a house that is remarkably similar to Jen's house in this book. There are fewer trees and more birds in Nest than there were in Understory, but I think beyond a doubt, Inga's time living in that house is a strong basis for Nest. This is probably what makes it all the more vivid, all the more real.
Marvellous book! I read a library copy, but I am all set to go out and buy myself one, as I am sure I will want to re-read before too long.
In this flawlessly written narrative the main human character is an artist who has returned to her small childhood town, somewhere on the Sunshine coast hinterlands. I say main 'human' character because the Australian bush, with it's trees and birds are for me, in fact the main characters. The main character, Jen, is an artist who paints and draws birds and while she taught art for many years by returning to this town and living frugally she is able to be a painter with only a single art student, Henry, who comes for after school drawing lessons.
Jen spends most of her time watching the birds that live around her house and maintaining the small, steep plot of bush that, as with most Australian bush, teems with weeds and threatens to overcome her house.
When a classmate of Henry's disappears, it brings back all the bad time in Jen's own childhood when her best friend at school disappeared, never to be found, at around the same time Jan's father left her and her mother, never to be seen again.
However anyone looking for a thriller or a murder mystery should walk past this one! There is no 'thrill' unless you are into trees and birds - so, of course, I found it deeply thrilling because books that do this sort of thing are so very rare. The mystery parts, yes there are resolutions to the father thing and the missing children, but it is a mild, pretty far removed resolution.
The human drams are more of a narrative backbone for the far more interesting, vivid and exciting descriptions of the natural world. The fight with the Singapore daisy will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to keep are garden in Queensland and the delightful descriptions of the yellow robins charmed me. The scrubwren that built her nest in the asparagus fern's pot seem way more significant (to us) than why exactly Jen's father left, though that meshed perfectly with the plot.
The writing style is distinctive, and similar to the less fictionised Understory: a life with trees by the same author. I say 'less fictionised' because Understory is the narrative of how the author and her partner bought and lived in a house that is remarkably similar to Jen's house in this book. There are fewer trees and more birds in Nest than there were in Understory, but I think beyond a doubt, Inga's time living in that house is a strong basis for Nest. This is probably what makes it all the more vivid, all the more real.
Marvellous book! I read a library copy, but I am all set to go out and buy myself one, as I am sure I will want to re-read before too long.
July 26, 2015
Nest by Inga Simpson
..."Something fell away, inside. Jen tried to catch it and jam it back, to stop the rush of realisation, the terrible clicking into place of all those images and pieces of information -- but it was no good. Daddy wasn't coming home."
I can't tell you what this book is about, you need to experience it for yourself, read the cover and understand that it is all that, and yet it is also about so much more than the cover describes.
If you love the written word, you won't be disappointed.
Inga's writing is ethereal, like a contemplation given voice.
It feels so personal that, at times, its like a window into the souls of her characters.
She has that rare and wonderful quality for capturing and translating those innermost feelings and thoughts (however fleeting) into words on a page, without compromising the essence...so that her writing is felt by the reader, as well as understood...
... And when Inga describes the bush, the trees and the earth, I can smell it! We are taken on a literary walk through Nature, to experience everything from the breathtaking beauty of the largest trees, to the shape and form of an aged leaf or a tiny new feather on a newly hatched bird.
Every page is painted with colours from her unique word palette.
The writing is as fine as any of the drawings described within, gradually bringing the story into being.
I know it is said that a book should not be judged by its cover, and I agree...However, it must also be said that, a gift well wrapped with consideration, is a thoughtful gift indeed.
So it must be noted that the beautiful cover art on Inga's book/s is also very relevant and considered...
Something I love about Inga Simpson's books is that, as much consideration and detail has been devoted to the cover art as to the story within. Once you read the book, you will note the relevance of the detailed cover art, right down to the choice of colour.
To my mind, this makes these books even more lovable and collectible, they are just as delightful to hold as to read...definitely keepers :)
Here is an author who takes her craft seriously.
I loved this book, I didn't read it so much as I listened to it, absorbed it.
I highly recommend it to any lover of a good book.
5★s
June 5, 2017
After taking early retirement from teaching, Jen returns to the small Queensland town where she grew up, for a quiet life of art, nature, baking and coming to terms with the past.
She woke early, when the rain stopped. The frogs had sung all night, reconstituted as if by magic. She dressed and hurried out onto the back deck. The air was washed clean. Green had returned to the land, moss refreshed, birds out hunting. Even the lettuces were sitting up in a way they never did after hand-watering.
This was a gentle, fairly quiet story, much like Inga Simpson's first novel, Mr Wigg. But where the two are quite different is that the plot of Nest revolves around two mysteries, one from the past and one in the present. Are the two mysteries related? We don't know until right at the end.
I really liked Jen and I loved her forest-edge property, which I could clearly picture in my mind. There were a couple of moments in the story where I thought things were about to get dark, but Simpson spares us and whisks us off to a new chapter.
Recommended for anyone in the mood for something that's not too taxing.
She woke early, when the rain stopped. The frogs had sung all night, reconstituted as if by magic. She dressed and hurried out onto the back deck. The air was washed clean. Green had returned to the land, moss refreshed, birds out hunting. Even the lettuces were sitting up in a way they never did after hand-watering.
This was a gentle, fairly quiet story, much like Inga Simpson's first novel, Mr Wigg. But where the two are quite different is that the plot of Nest revolves around two mysteries, one from the past and one in the present. Are the two mysteries related? We don't know until right at the end.
I really liked Jen and I loved her forest-edge property, which I could clearly picture in my mind. There were a couple of moments in the story where I thought things were about to get dark, but Simpson spares us and whisks us off to a new chapter.
Recommended for anyone in the mood for something that's not too taxing.
January 12, 2015
This is a beautiful novel about a woman called Jen who has returned to her childhood home to live a simpler life and recover from grief and lost love. Inga Simpson writes lyrically about the birds and trees that make up Jen's surroundings and clearly has a fine eye for noting the small details and nuances of the natural world. The descriptions of the birds are so sharp and colourful you can almost see them in your mind's eye, such as these Eastern Robins bathing: "Of all the birds, they were the most ridiculous, pitching chest first into the water and shaking themselves into fluffy rounds until their eyes and legs disappeared." She also clearly appreciates the beauty of trees, as evident in this description of a brush box tree: "New shoots began as a pale green bud, emerging in early summer, vertically, like a flower, before opening up into a hand of leaves, giving the trees the look of a sculpted bonsai."
Jen has been deeply wounded by the ending of a long term relationship with a self-centred man and following the death of her mother, gives up her job teaching art and moves back to her parents house to return to her first love, drawing and painting birds. Initially she cocoons herself from the townspeople and news of the outside world, nursing her grief and lost love: "But she hung on all the same, nursing it like a blown egg, the fragile shell of what it had once been. It was all she had, and she had no intention of casting it out of the nest."
After advertising private art lessons, Jen starts teaching Henry, a talented primary school student, and gradually starts to reconnect with the community. When one of Henry's classmates disappears Jen is forced back to remember her own childhood when her best friend Michael disappeared without trace.
The story of Jen's previous life, her current re-awakening and the mystery of the missing children is woven together throughout the book, illustrated with evocative descriptions of the bush and nature. Birds are a recurrent theme as are the nature of nests, a metaphor for Jen's life. Drawing an empty nest she suddenly discovers life within "But there was something else, someone in the nest: a scrubwren, her yellow eyes scowling beneath white eyebrow markings......While drawing her empty nest, she had imagined its lost inhabitants, trying to bring life and loss to the page. Somehow she had drawn life to the nest instead."
There is much to love in this gentle story, which builds slowly to a climax with the coming of the longed for summer rains to renew the parched bush and bring some resolution to Jen's life.
Jen has been deeply wounded by the ending of a long term relationship with a self-centred man and following the death of her mother, gives up her job teaching art and moves back to her parents house to return to her first love, drawing and painting birds. Initially she cocoons herself from the townspeople and news of the outside world, nursing her grief and lost love: "But she hung on all the same, nursing it like a blown egg, the fragile shell of what it had once been. It was all she had, and she had no intention of casting it out of the nest."
After advertising private art lessons, Jen starts teaching Henry, a talented primary school student, and gradually starts to reconnect with the community. When one of Henry's classmates disappears Jen is forced back to remember her own childhood when her best friend Michael disappeared without trace.
The story of Jen's previous life, her current re-awakening and the mystery of the missing children is woven together throughout the book, illustrated with evocative descriptions of the bush and nature. Birds are a recurrent theme as are the nature of nests, a metaphor for Jen's life. Drawing an empty nest she suddenly discovers life within "But there was something else, someone in the nest: a scrubwren, her yellow eyes scowling beneath white eyebrow markings......While drawing her empty nest, she had imagined its lost inhabitants, trying to bring life and loss to the page. Somehow she had drawn life to the nest instead."
There is much to love in this gentle story, which builds slowly to a climax with the coming of the longed for summer rains to renew the parched bush and bring some resolution to Jen's life.
November 13, 2014
Three and a half stars.
Having adored Mr.Wiggs, written by the same author, I was so looking forward to reading Nest. I loved the cover and the first page had me thinking how I would enjoy his story. In what seems to be a popular theme in novels these days Jen, an artist and teacher, has returned to the small town where she grew up. Her only regular visitor is Henry who comes to her for art lessons. When Caitlin, a girl in Henrys’ class goes missing it brings back memories of her childhood friend Michael who also went missing and was never found. At the same time her adored father left her and her mother, raising a great deal of speculation. This recent disappearance has stirred up all the old stories.
There is mystery and tension in this book as the stories of Caitlin, Michal and Jen’s father overlap. It has all the ingredients of a good read especially when you add in the ingredients of beautiful prose and detailed description of the bird life.
While I enjoyed this novel it certainly did not have the same effect on me as Mr Wiggs. Perhaps it was having read it too close to the other book, though I did read another couple of books in between? Perhaps I simply wasn’t as in tune with Jen as I was Mr Wiggs? I don't know, but for me this had nowhere near the charm of Mr Wiggs. It didn’t have that fluidity and magic of the other book. That’s not to say it’s not worth reading, as it is. But for me it just wasn’t in the same class as Mr Wiggs
Having adored Mr.Wiggs, written by the same author, I was so looking forward to reading Nest. I loved the cover and the first page had me thinking how I would enjoy his story. In what seems to be a popular theme in novels these days Jen, an artist and teacher, has returned to the small town where she grew up. Her only regular visitor is Henry who comes to her for art lessons. When Caitlin, a girl in Henrys’ class goes missing it brings back memories of her childhood friend Michael who also went missing and was never found. At the same time her adored father left her and her mother, raising a great deal of speculation. This recent disappearance has stirred up all the old stories.
There is mystery and tension in this book as the stories of Caitlin, Michal and Jen’s father overlap. It has all the ingredients of a good read especially when you add in the ingredients of beautiful prose and detailed description of the bird life.
While I enjoyed this novel it certainly did not have the same effect on me as Mr Wiggs. Perhaps it was having read it too close to the other book, though I did read another couple of books in between? Perhaps I simply wasn’t as in tune with Jen as I was Mr Wiggs? I don't know, but for me this had nowhere near the charm of Mr Wiggs. It didn’t have that fluidity and magic of the other book. That’s not to say it’s not worth reading, as it is. But for me it just wasn’t in the same class as Mr Wiggs
August 5, 2014
‘She was trying to capture the wild – the essence of leaf, flower and bird.’ Jen, the protagonist of Inga Simpson’s book, ‘Nest’ is an artist, a drawer of birds. After a relationship breakup and her mother’s death, Jen returns to the town she grew up in. There, she regenerates her patch of land and draws the many birds attracted by her birdbath.
Jen leads an isolated life. With the exception of her young pupil Henry, who she is teaching to draw, she has little social contact. It is through Henry that she learns a girl from the town has gone missing. The loss of Caitlin brings back memories from Jen’s past and another missing child, Michael.
The mystery of the missing children provides a dark undercurrent to Jen’s simple life on her property. As we get to know Jen we learn more about the hurts she is holding inside. Returning home requires her to come to terms with her own history, in particular the disappearance of her father. Revelations fall one on top of the other as the story unfolds.
One of the delightful things about this book is the way it immerses us in the natural world. Inga is an accomplished nature writer and her love of wild places comes out through her character’s observations. The birds and the bush are described in warm detail – ‘The limbs of the brush-box tended to horizontal, like a reaching arm, and their leaves were large and flattish. They not only held the sunlight, but emitted a glow of their own, as if illuminated from within.’
Jen is a complex character whose relationship with Henry is touching and authentic. A lover of nests and tall trees, she learned to climb into the canopy with her former partner, Craig – ‘… once up in the mist, among salamanders and lichens and liverworts barely seen by another human being, she had found her tree legs.’
Like Inga’s previous novel, ‘Mr Wigg’, ‘Nest’ is a gently told book, written in simple, evocative prose. Despite the missing children, it is optimistic and full of a childlike sense of wonder at our world. The story plays out at a steady pace with the lost children adding a page-turning backbone. Reading ‘Nest’ left me with a hankering to curl up a tree and have the wind blow me to sleep.
Jen leads an isolated life. With the exception of her young pupil Henry, who she is teaching to draw, she has little social contact. It is through Henry that she learns a girl from the town has gone missing. The loss of Caitlin brings back memories from Jen’s past and another missing child, Michael.
The mystery of the missing children provides a dark undercurrent to Jen’s simple life on her property. As we get to know Jen we learn more about the hurts she is holding inside. Returning home requires her to come to terms with her own history, in particular the disappearance of her father. Revelations fall one on top of the other as the story unfolds.
One of the delightful things about this book is the way it immerses us in the natural world. Inga is an accomplished nature writer and her love of wild places comes out through her character’s observations. The birds and the bush are described in warm detail – ‘The limbs of the brush-box tended to horizontal, like a reaching arm, and their leaves were large and flattish. They not only held the sunlight, but emitted a glow of their own, as if illuminated from within.’
Jen is a complex character whose relationship with Henry is touching and authentic. A lover of nests and tall trees, she learned to climb into the canopy with her former partner, Craig – ‘… once up in the mist, among salamanders and lichens and liverworts barely seen by another human being, she had found her tree legs.’
Like Inga’s previous novel, ‘Mr Wigg’, ‘Nest’ is a gently told book, written in simple, evocative prose. Despite the missing children, it is optimistic and full of a childlike sense of wonder at our world. The story plays out at a steady pace with the lost children adding a page-turning backbone. Reading ‘Nest’ left me with a hankering to curl up a tree and have the wind blow me to sleep.
August 15, 2014
After a relationship breakdown and the death of her mother, artist Jen Vogel has taken refuge in her childhood hometown. Here she is content to sketch and paint the birds that visit her garden, care for the land that embraces her property and tutor a talented local teen to supplement her income, but unpleasant memories are revived when a young girl goes missing on her way home from school. Nearly four decades earlier, Jen's best friend Michael, and then her father, disappeared without a trace within days of each other and still there are no answers to what became of them.
Nest is a gentle book, sharing the quiet rhythms of Jen's days and the turbulent memories of her past. It explores the themes of loss, grief, healing and growth, a cycle echoed in the environment in which Jen lives.
The mystery of the missing children, and Jen's father's whereabouts, adds interest and a frisson of tension to what is otherwise a fairly introspective narrative.
The language is evocative, with vivid observations of the flora and fauna that surrounds Jen's bush haven. Jen has a particular fascination with birds, with robins being her favourite.
"The robins arrived last, splashing and fluffing, sending the other birds off. Their golden yellow was luminous at dusk, as if carrying the last gleams of the sun. Only now did they sing, with their sweet, piping whistle, and first thing in the morning. Their song was best suited to dusk and dawn - the in-between."
Nest is a self possessed, thoughtful novel from Inga Simpson, author of Mr Wigg.
July 28, 2017
The author has gone to great pains to beautifully describe the abundance of bird life and of the ever changing vegetation of the Australian landscape. Burnt dry one minute and drowning in torrential rain the next minute. The story revolves around one central character, Jen. Jen is trying to cope with her past, family and personal relationships and how they have impacted on her in making her a loner. Jen sees the world through an artistic eye, one that is very different than most.
The story drags a little and becomes bogged down with the character blaming external experiences for her morose attitude. The mystery of the missing children becomes obvious well before the end. Mr Wigg by this author I enjoyed more.
The story drags a little and becomes bogged down with the character blaming external experiences for her morose attitude. The mystery of the missing children becomes obvious well before the end. Mr Wigg by this author I enjoyed more.
August 16, 2014
My View:
Life affirming, restful and restorative.
This is a beautifully painted picture of rich colours, ruffled feathers, about creating a space, a nest; to lie in, to return to, to heal and nurture oneself in or is this more about the empty nest? This is a complicated narrative beautifully told.
It was by coincidence I picked up this book just as we were travelling around south east Queensland, here, now, the land is dry and waiting for the rains as is the area and town this book is set in. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the landscape, the flora and the fauna and the deep connection the protagonist has with the land and the rhythms of the seasons. It is a very relaxing almost meditative style of storytelling that quietly involves the reader in Jen’s the day to day life. There is something pleasing about her ritual baking, her weeding, planting and creation of art, her observation of nature. Jen appears to be leaving in the moment, but realistically she is stuck in the past; in past relationships, in lost lives and absent parents.
Slowly we witness Jen’s metamorphosis into a more whole and emotionally healthy individual as the mysteries surrounding her are revealed and she reconnects with the present and the community. We are given hints that she may have let go of last relationship as she scatters mementos to the wind and reconnects with old school friends and rediscovers a friend who may be moving back to the area who shares her interest in birds. She reconnects to her community through her art and her passion for rehabilitating the bush. Nature is a wonderfully healer.
Nest and all the permutations of its meaning are discussed and revealed for the reader to reflect upon in this narrative. Cherish the writing in this book, reflect on the peaceful setting and appreciate the healing hands of Mother Nature.
Life affirming, restful and restorative.
This is a beautifully painted picture of rich colours, ruffled feathers, about creating a space, a nest; to lie in, to return to, to heal and nurture oneself in or is this more about the empty nest? This is a complicated narrative beautifully told.
It was by coincidence I picked up this book just as we were travelling around south east Queensland, here, now, the land is dry and waiting for the rains as is the area and town this book is set in. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the landscape, the flora and the fauna and the deep connection the protagonist has with the land and the rhythms of the seasons. It is a very relaxing almost meditative style of storytelling that quietly involves the reader in Jen’s the day to day life. There is something pleasing about her ritual baking, her weeding, planting and creation of art, her observation of nature. Jen appears to be leaving in the moment, but realistically she is stuck in the past; in past relationships, in lost lives and absent parents.
Slowly we witness Jen’s metamorphosis into a more whole and emotionally healthy individual as the mysteries surrounding her are revealed and she reconnects with the present and the community. We are given hints that she may have let go of last relationship as she scatters mementos to the wind and reconnects with old school friends and rediscovers a friend who may be moving back to the area who shares her interest in birds. She reconnects to her community through her art and her passion for rehabilitating the bush. Nature is a wonderfully healer.
Nest and all the permutations of its meaning are discussed and revealed for the reader to reflect upon in this narrative. Cherish the writing in this book, reflect on the peaceful setting and appreciate the healing hands of Mother Nature.
August 19, 2014
Inga Simpson writes with an unassuming quietness that positively drips with poetic prettiness.
Jen is back in her home town. Her relationship over, her mother deceased and a career change that sees her move from full time teaching to tutoring young Henry in art. When Henry's classmate goes missing, it brings up memories fro Jen, from 20 years ago when her best friend Michael went missing and her father left without so much as a word never to return. There was talk then, and there was bound to be talk now.
Through her eloquently gorgeous descriptions of the flora and fauna in Jen's surrounds (that only added to the life breathed into the pages) Simpson delivers a quiet and meandering unravelling of a mystery.
There's so much to love in this tale.
Nest will delight all lovers of literature.
Jen is back in her home town. Her relationship over, her mother deceased and a career change that sees her move from full time teaching to tutoring young Henry in art. When Henry's classmate goes missing, it brings up memories fro Jen, from 20 years ago when her best friend Michael went missing and her father left without so much as a word never to return. There was talk then, and there was bound to be talk now.
Through her eloquently gorgeous descriptions of the flora and fauna in Jen's surrounds (that only added to the life breathed into the pages) Simpson delivers a quiet and meandering unravelling of a mystery.
There's so much to love in this tale.
Nest will delight all lovers of literature.
August 27, 2014
Nest is delightfully written. The characters engaging (especially the birds). The tone and pace are well structured, and the concept is well developed and thoroughly engaging.
- Félix Calvino
- Félix Calvino
March 26, 2021
‘There was more than one hazard in returning to the town where you grew up.’
Jen Vogel, an artist and once a teacher, has returned to the place where she grew up. Her mother has recently died, and her long-term relationship has ended. Jen is returning to a place of safety, a nest. She lives alone in a secluded house, watching and drawing the birds around her and tending the semi-tropical garden around her home. Jen’s most regular interaction is with Henry, a high school student and talented artist to whom she is giving drawing lessons.
But when Caitlin, a girl in Henry’s class goes missing, Jen is drawn out of her current safe nest into the past. Nearly forty years earlier, when Jen was Henry’s age, her best friend Michael went missing, and her father left. When Caitlin goes missing, people are reminded of the past, and speculate about what happened and why. Jen watches and draws the birds around her, and tension builds.
Adding to this tension, of recent and past disappearances, is waiting for the summer rain. Rain that tantalises and threatens, creating an oppressive atmosphere before finally arriving.
What is ‘Nest’ about? Answers about those who are missing is one aspect but to me it is more about, revisiting the past and coming to terms with the past in order to move into the future.
I enjoyed this novel, with its quiet reflective pace. Ms Simpson brings Jen and her environment to life.
‘Sometimes it’s not your drawing that’s the problem, but your connection with the subject,’ she said. ‘There’s a story there, you just have to find it.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Jen Vogel, an artist and once a teacher, has returned to the place where she grew up. Her mother has recently died, and her long-term relationship has ended. Jen is returning to a place of safety, a nest. She lives alone in a secluded house, watching and drawing the birds around her and tending the semi-tropical garden around her home. Jen’s most regular interaction is with Henry, a high school student and talented artist to whom she is giving drawing lessons.
But when Caitlin, a girl in Henry’s class goes missing, Jen is drawn out of her current safe nest into the past. Nearly forty years earlier, when Jen was Henry’s age, her best friend Michael went missing, and her father left. When Caitlin goes missing, people are reminded of the past, and speculate about what happened and why. Jen watches and draws the birds around her, and tension builds.
Adding to this tension, of recent and past disappearances, is waiting for the summer rain. Rain that tantalises and threatens, creating an oppressive atmosphere before finally arriving.
What is ‘Nest’ about? Answers about those who are missing is one aspect but to me it is more about, revisiting the past and coming to terms with the past in order to move into the future.
I enjoyed this novel, with its quiet reflective pace. Ms Simpson brings Jen and her environment to life.
‘Sometimes it’s not your drawing that’s the problem, but your connection with the subject,’ she said. ‘There’s a story there, you just have to find it.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
December 23, 2014
Jen has returned to her childhood town in the subtropics of Eastern Australia. She teaches art and watched the birds and wildlife in her jungle home. As a child from the town goes missing, Jen is reminded of the loss of her father and her best friend when she was a child. Jen’s return to her nest reconnects her to this mystery of the past, and to meaning. Her relationship with her student, Henry, is both a friendship and a mentorship.
The languid pace of this book luxuriates in gorgeous description of the birds, the forest, the community, and art. Despite a pair of missing-child mysteries being central (ish), the feeling of Nest is quiet, contemplative, and engrossing: as connects with place, with land, and with life - through her art.
Jen’s close, attentive observation of nature and the everyday is intricate, but in a good way, like meandering through a Mandelbrot set.
Jen also confronts her own ageing, sharing with us descriptions of her bodily experience of perimenopause.
As Nest progresses, a series of ultimately minor but potentially serious incidents gives us a sense of ever-present mortality, of life on the edge. We are left contemplating the horror of child murder, and this is contextualised with the way killings are utterly ordinary amongst the birds and other animals that Jen watches - humans as another form of wildlife, perhaps, facing the same menaces.
The pacing of the book is like a slow heartbeat, as it moves through weed-fighting, sketching, teaching, bird-watching, flood, regeneration work, family secrets, swimming… This is a beautifully-crafted book teeming with life, death, and the ephemerality and beauty of existence and peril.
The languid pace of this book luxuriates in gorgeous description of the birds, the forest, the community, and art. Despite a pair of missing-child mysteries being central (ish), the feeling of Nest is quiet, contemplative, and engrossing: as connects with place, with land, and with life - through her art.
"Jen put a hand on the log on which she leaned. She was a timber child, grown from fallen trees and sawdust. Standing on stumps before she knew them for carcasses and gravestones. […] In Jen’s forest, only two original trees survived, bloodwoods metres thick, and towering above the other trees. Their timber wasn’t any good for building, riddled with veins of blood-like resin that oozed out when their trunks or limbs were cut or damaged. It was a shame all trees didn’t bleed: there might be a few more left standing."
Jen’s close, attentive observation of nature and the everyday is intricate, but in a good way, like meandering through a Mandelbrot set.
“Not for the first time, she wondered if it wasn’t a mistake to try to pin the bird to the page, to confine it to paper with her meagre scratches and marks. The pleasure of living among them should be enough.
As if to emphasise the point, the family of fairy-wrens flitted and flirted their long tails at the baths, the cobalt blue and russet of the males no less astounding for the frequency with which she saw it. It made them vain, though. She preferred the plainer females with their red eye masks and more subtle touches of blue in their tail feathers. Their cheerful chatter lacked the self-consciousness of the males, the need to perform. And she knew all too well what it was to be the plainer of a pair.”
Jen also confronts her own ageing, sharing with us descriptions of her bodily experience of perimenopause.
"Her skin was dry and itchy, wanting to flake off like the bark of the spotted gums outside. Not that she was lucky enough to have a smooth new version of herself waiting underneath; she was stuck with the skin she had, stretching and wrinkling with each passing year."
As Nest progresses, a series of ultimately minor but potentially serious incidents gives us a sense of ever-present mortality, of life on the edge. We are left contemplating the horror of child murder, and this is contextualised with the way killings are utterly ordinary amongst the birds and other animals that Jen watches - humans as another form of wildlife, perhaps, facing the same menaces.
"She had given the robins a false sense of security, thinking that they were safe in this clearing. But with the trees dropping leaves and branches flat out to survive the dry spell, the cover had thinned and butcherbirds snuck in to spy little birds from the high branches, swooping to strike."
The pacing of the book is like a slow heartbeat, as it moves through weed-fighting, sketching, teaching, bird-watching, flood, regeneration work, family secrets, swimming… This is a beautifully-crafted book teeming with life, death, and the ephemerality and beauty of existence and peril.
October 15, 2019
I loved living in this story, and it was such a pity when I reached the end. This book is a real slow burner, and is essentially about nothing much more than a lady in her early fifties who is an artist, living alone on a rural block, and her day to day life through one year of seasons. Yet there is so much to this simplicity, and I wanted to stay sitting with Jen, the protagonist.
There's some intrigues delivered along the way, about a child in the village who has gone missing, in the same way a childhood friend of Jen's went missing when she was 12. It's about the search for her father who left the same week. Solving these mysteries is not the point of the story though, and I love that they've given the story impetus, but are not the focus.
The book is instead about the everyday - the birds Jen observes, the artwork she creates, the weeds she clears, the fight with the ride on lawnmower, the sub-tropical forest, the humidity and rain of the wet season.
Maybe I loved this so much as living where I do in the tropics, north of where the book is set in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, on a rural block myself, it was like reading my story and my life. I've also had many a day tackling growth that's not welcome (wait-a-while is a menace!), having to take my husband to hospital after he lost a fight with the ride on, learning about the tree species on my block and planting many more, having birds move in and nest on our verandah (I love my little sunbirds) and swelter through the build up waiting for the rains for come.
This book is an ode to nature, and to existing side by side with nature. It won't be for everyone, but for some it will call to your heart and draw you in.
There's some intrigues delivered along the way, about a child in the village who has gone missing, in the same way a childhood friend of Jen's went missing when she was 12. It's about the search for her father who left the same week. Solving these mysteries is not the point of the story though, and I love that they've given the story impetus, but are not the focus.
The book is instead about the everyday - the birds Jen observes, the artwork she creates, the weeds she clears, the fight with the ride on lawnmower, the sub-tropical forest, the humidity and rain of the wet season.
Maybe I loved this so much as living where I do in the tropics, north of where the book is set in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, on a rural block myself, it was like reading my story and my life. I've also had many a day tackling growth that's not welcome (wait-a-while is a menace!), having to take my husband to hospital after he lost a fight with the ride on, learning about the tree species on my block and planting many more, having birds move in and nest on our verandah (I love my little sunbirds) and swelter through the build up waiting for the rains for come.
This book is an ode to nature, and to existing side by side with nature. It won't be for everyone, but for some it will call to your heart and draw you in.
May 9, 2015
Wow, this is quite incredible and can see why it has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Beautifully constructed as it draws you into a world amongst the tree tops. Her depictions of our feathered friends is stunning and I love that even within the bird species how she separates good from evil. It is a book of self reflection and revealing outcomes.
I love this particular paragraph which to me sums ups the story
"She climbed into her nest while it rested on her porch branch, then raised herself, hand over hand, with the little pulleys. She secured them so that she was close enough to touch the rail branch but free to swing. Evening air bit at her lungs, just enough to let her know she was outside, and alive after all"
I love this particular paragraph which to me sums ups the story
"She climbed into her nest while it rested on her porch branch, then raised herself, hand over hand, with the little pulleys. She secured them so that she was close enough to touch the rail branch but free to swing. Evening air bit at her lungs, just enough to let her know she was outside, and alive after all"
April 15, 2015
For a plot centred on 4 mysteries - two missing children, a missing father, and a missing partner - this novel feels unhurried, and is driven more by Jen's connection to place and nature. The missing partner mystery is one for the reader, rather than Jen herself to discover, and it unfolds slowly throughout the book. The missing father unravels surprisingly easily, considering how little Jen knew. The missing children plot, in the end, is more a back story than anything central to the narrative. The landscape is beautifully depicted and the birds make the book come to life.
November 30, 2016
This is a short, gentle novel about home, loss, and relationships, but it's also some of the most exquisite nature writing I've come across--especially if you think bird-watching in the subtropics of Eastern Australia sounds cool, and you think about who inhabits the trees you see every day, which I do.
ETA a link to Lauredhel's wonderful, much more thorough review
CW: missing children
ETA a link to Lauredhel's wonderful, much more thorough review
CW: missing children
January 20, 2015
Probably a 3.5 nearly a 4. I loved the appreciation for nature, the detailed bird knowledge. I just thought the main story was lost a little in the detail. It did give me a new interest in bird varieties and behaviour though.
January 19, 2015
A really beautiful book about birds, nature, art, family and how to make a life. As a bird-nerd who grew up around the areas that this is set I might be particularly biased to love it, but it's bound to appeal to anyone with a passing interest in nature writing and literary fiction.
September 26, 2015
Jen was once an artist and a teacher, but now she spends her times watching birds and working in her gardens. Her house is surrounded by her lush sub-tropical gardens which help keep her from being disturbed by other people in the small town that she grew up in. The only person she sees regularly is Henry who comes after school for drawing lessons. However a girl in his class has gone missing, which pulls Jen back into her past where she lost both her father and best friend in the same week. Now forty years later, the town is talking about those disappearances in connection to the newly missing girl.
If I went into Nest as a book on nature writing, I may have a completely different reaction to the book. For me I went in thinking this was going to be a novel revolving around the disappearances and possibly solving the mysteries of her past and what happened to this young girl. Nest focuses mainly on a life of seclusion and the birds Jen finds within her garden. It is a quiet and even gentle novel that I did not connect with at all.
The mysteries only served as a sub-plot and no real depth went into developing it. I found Jen was very evasive and did not want to explore her past or talk about the situation. This was meant to be a way to show the damage caused by the loss of her father and best friend but it was just over done. It was a useful technique for exploring Jen’s hurt and pain but because it was used so much the mystery plot really suffered.
I know I went into the book with the wrong expectations, and I eventually did enjoy the nature writing, and the quiet and peaceful sentences. I put too much focus on the sub-plot and this really highlighted the problems I had with the novel. Inga Simpson can really write and there are some great sentence structures to be found in this novel. Nest is beautifully written and if you love nature and bird watching, this will be worth reading; just do not read this for the mystery.
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/literatu...
If I went into Nest as a book on nature writing, I may have a completely different reaction to the book. For me I went in thinking this was going to be a novel revolving around the disappearances and possibly solving the mysteries of her past and what happened to this young girl. Nest focuses mainly on a life of seclusion and the birds Jen finds within her garden. It is a quiet and even gentle novel that I did not connect with at all.
The mysteries only served as a sub-plot and no real depth went into developing it. I found Jen was very evasive and did not want to explore her past or talk about the situation. This was meant to be a way to show the damage caused by the loss of her father and best friend but it was just over done. It was a useful technique for exploring Jen’s hurt and pain but because it was used so much the mystery plot really suffered.
I know I went into the book with the wrong expectations, and I eventually did enjoy the nature writing, and the quiet and peaceful sentences. I put too much focus on the sub-plot and this really highlighted the problems I had with the novel. Inga Simpson can really write and there are some great sentence structures to be found in this novel. Nest is beautifully written and if you love nature and bird watching, this will be worth reading; just do not read this for the mystery.
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/literatu...
September 11, 2014
After the breakup of her marriage, Jen restarts her life, returning to the sunshine coast hinterland, where she grew up. She has a few acres on which she maintains a garden and birdbaths, the activities around which form the subjects in her watercolour paintings. When Jen’s drawing student, high-schooler Henry, tells her that a classmate has gone missing, Jen is tumbled back to her own troubled childhood, where she, too, suffered the unexplained loss of loved ones--her dear school friend, Michael, and her father. While on the surface, Jen’s experiences seem like an accretion of loss and grief, she is a resilient woman, taking sustenance and life lessons by observing the behaviour and cycles of the plants and animals that share her home: the brush turkeys and rufous fantails, the robins and king parrots and treecreepers. Like Mr Wigg, the protagonist in Simpson’s first novel, Jen finds a life-affirming satisfaction in the rituals of baking, gardening, making tea and conversation. As she composes her paintings, Jen begins to piece together what went wrong in her marriage. She turns over questions posed in childhood but left unanswered, carried with her into adulthood. Secrets and traces, that the landscape and the seasons threaten to divulge. ‘Nest’ is a warm, funny, heartfelt and genuine story, which arrived with perfect timing for this reader. Highly recommended.(less)
March 25, 2016
Australia is blessed with its current and emerging writing talents.
Nest is the second book from Inga Simpson, an author who is worth following. The book slowly drifts along, with poetic and lyrical references the birds, landscapes and weather surrounding the life of Jen, a successful artist, who is dealing with a traumatic childhood where her best friend and her father both went missing on the same day. Now nearing her 40s, Jen has returned to the town and finds old memories coming back when another young child goes missing.
The story is about dealing with loss and how nature plays such an important part of healing. Worth the read just for the beauty of Australia.
Nest is the second book from Inga Simpson, an author who is worth following. The book slowly drifts along, with poetic and lyrical references the birds, landscapes and weather surrounding the life of Jen, a successful artist, who is dealing with a traumatic childhood where her best friend and her father both went missing on the same day. Now nearing her 40s, Jen has returned to the town and finds old memories coming back when another young child goes missing.
The story is about dealing with loss and how nature plays such an important part of healing. Worth the read just for the beauty of Australia.
July 1, 2015
I'm very grateful that the inclusion of NEST in the 2015 Ned Kelly Submissions meant that this wonderful book by Inga Simpson came to my attention. I'm not sure that I'd call this a crime novel, but it's beautiful, engaging and extremely readable.
Reflective and languidly paced, NEST sees Jen Vogel return to the bush town of her childhood. Her mother has recently died, her long-term relationship ended and Jen has returned to her "nest", to the place where she feels safe. A wildlife artist, the garden that surrounds her new home is full of the birds that she loves, and the book takes considerable time to describe the birds, their movements and her interaction with them. It's beautifully done, as is the friendship and mentoring that she builds with a young, teenage artist she is tutoring.
Lurking under the surface of this idyllic, but obviously withdrawn life, there's some past mysteries including the disappearance of a young boy Jen had been friends with as a teenager, and the current disappearance of a young girl in the community. This is obviously the "crime" aspect that triggered the inclusion of NEST in the Ned Kelly submissions, but it's not the point of the book. NEST is much more about change, loss and coming to terms with the past so that the future can be lived.
The storytelling style suits this aim perfectly. It's beautifully paced, rythmic, and full of vivid descriptions, but it's the emotion that is the most elegantly done. Whilst Jen is particularly introspective, and obviously thoughtful and reflective, there's nothing overwhelmingly melancholic about her life. She's obviously sad about a number of things, and seeking to understand much from her past, but she's connected so strongly to her garden, and the surrounding landscape that there's a wonderful feeling of hope and contentment as well. Wonderfully evocative and beautifully delivered, NEST was utterly mesmerising.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/revie...
Reflective and languidly paced, NEST sees Jen Vogel return to the bush town of her childhood. Her mother has recently died, her long-term relationship ended and Jen has returned to her "nest", to the place where she feels safe. A wildlife artist, the garden that surrounds her new home is full of the birds that she loves, and the book takes considerable time to describe the birds, their movements and her interaction with them. It's beautifully done, as is the friendship and mentoring that she builds with a young, teenage artist she is tutoring.
Lurking under the surface of this idyllic, but obviously withdrawn life, there's some past mysteries including the disappearance of a young boy Jen had been friends with as a teenager, and the current disappearance of a young girl in the community. This is obviously the "crime" aspect that triggered the inclusion of NEST in the Ned Kelly submissions, but it's not the point of the book. NEST is much more about change, loss and coming to terms with the past so that the future can be lived.
The storytelling style suits this aim perfectly. It's beautifully paced, rythmic, and full of vivid descriptions, but it's the emotion that is the most elegantly done. Whilst Jen is particularly introspective, and obviously thoughtful and reflective, there's nothing overwhelmingly melancholic about her life. She's obviously sad about a number of things, and seeking to understand much from her past, but she's connected so strongly to her garden, and the surrounding landscape that there's a wonderful feeling of hope and contentment as well. Wonderfully evocative and beautifully delivered, NEST was utterly mesmerising.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/revie...
October 18, 2016
Nest – Inga Simpson
Inga Simpson is an Australian writer and Nest is a rhapsody about the importance of being at one with the natural world. The protagonist Jen is a middle-aged artist who has retreated from the world after a bitter break-up. She lives on the edge of a sub-tropical rainforest, which she has turned into a paradise for native birds and animals. Hers is a quiet life; she watches the birds, teaches a local boy to draw and paint, and practises her own art when she can. One day a local girl goes missing, and Jen’s tragic past collides with the present. Somehow she must find peace with her own father’s disappearance many years before, and find the courage to push the boundaries in both her creative and personal endeavours. Simple, elegant, wistful, Nest is as delicate and as nurturing as the birds’ home it describes.
Inga Simpson is an Australian writer and Nest is a rhapsody about the importance of being at one with the natural world. The protagonist Jen is a middle-aged artist who has retreated from the world after a bitter break-up. She lives on the edge of a sub-tropical rainforest, which she has turned into a paradise for native birds and animals. Hers is a quiet life; she watches the birds, teaches a local boy to draw and paint, and practises her own art when she can. One day a local girl goes missing, and Jen’s tragic past collides with the present. Somehow she must find peace with her own father’s disappearance many years before, and find the courage to push the boundaries in both her creative and personal endeavours. Simple, elegant, wistful, Nest is as delicate and as nurturing as the birds’ home it describes.
September 27, 2014
Another beautiful novel by Inga Simpson. Once again the text is so descriptive, I was transported to Jen's backyard, I could feel the humidity on my skin and see the beautiful wildlife. A lovely book about healing yourself with nature, new beginnings and letting go of the past. X
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