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After the Fire, a Still Small Voice
Set in the haunting landscape of eastern Australia, this is a stunningly accomplished debut novel about the inescapable past: the ineffable ties of family, the wars fought by fathers and sons, and what goes unsaid.
After the departure of the woman he loves, Frank drives out to a shack by the ocean that he had last visited as a teenager. There, among the sugarcane and sand dunes, he struggles to rebuild his life.
Forty years earlier, Leon is growing up in Sydney, turning out treacle tarts at his parents' bakery and flirting with one of the local girls. But when he's drafted to serve in Vietnam, he finds himself suddenly confronting the same experiences that haunt his war-veteran father.
As these two stories weave around each other - each narrated in a voice as tender as it is fierce - we learn what binds Frank and Leon together, and what may end up keeping them apart.
After the departure of the woman he loves, Frank drives out to a shack by the ocean that he had last visited as a teenager. There, among the sugarcane and sand dunes, he struggles to rebuild his life.
Forty years earlier, Leon is growing up in Sydney, turning out treacle tarts at his parents' bakery and flirting with one of the local girls. But when he's drafted to serve in Vietnam, he finds himself suddenly confronting the same experiences that haunt his war-veteran father.
As these two stories weave around each other - each narrated in a voice as tender as it is fierce - we learn what binds Frank and Leon together, and what may end up keeping them apart.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 220 reviews
May 30, 2017
I felt like this book lacked direction. I expected the two storylines to come together much more than they did, which led to the ending falling flat for me. I love Wyld's writing style—and I really loved her second novel, All the Birds, Singing—but these characters and their journeys weren't nearly as interesting. I would still read anything else she writes, but wouldn't recommend this one as highly.
February 26, 2019
Australian author Wyld's debut novel is harder to read (and harder to love) than her more recent novel, the enthralling
All the Birds, Singing
.
One of Clark Little's stunning waves
After the Fire features a troubled main character, Frank Collard, who chucks it all to go live by the beach, where he gradually earns a place among the locals. But the alternating chapters that give his father's and grandfather's stories (in the Korean and Vietnam wars) make it a trial to keep track of what happened to whom.
One of Clark Little's stunning waves
After the Fire features a troubled main character, Frank Collard, who chucks it all to go live by the beach, where he gradually earns a place among the locals. But the alternating chapters that give his father's and grandfather's stories (in the Korean and Vietnam wars) make it a trial to keep track of what happened to whom.
December 13, 2013
Women can be sexist pigs, too. Only thing is, it's okay when they're nasty, dismissive, judgmental about men. Don't believe me? Read AFTER THE FIRE, A STILL SMALL VOICE.
A thoroughly unpleasant book.
A thoroughly unpleasant book.
February 21, 2016
“Eucalyptus blanketed the room. He had the feeling that the trees were peering in through the windows, that they had uprooted and crept over to take a peek. The leaves of the banana tree on the roof were a gentle tap tap tap let me in”
After the Fire, a Still Small Voice is the first novel by prize-winning Anglo-Australian author, Evie Wyld. A story that spans three generations, it is told from the perspective of Frank, who, in the present day, is fleeing behaviour he is ashamed of; and of Leon, decades earlier, forced to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Frank arrives at Mulaburry, determined that life in his grandparents’ hut in the cane-fields will help him forget Lucy, the woman he mistreated. “The clearing was smaller than he remembered, like the cane had slunk closer to the pale wooden box hut. The banana tree stooped low over a corrugated roof”.
Having watched the broken remains of his father, once a master baker, return from the Korean War, Leon finds himself plucked from his own baking career to land in the jungles of Vietnam.
Wyld alternates the narratives so that the significant events of each man’s life are gradually revealed, and the reader learns how one man’s history impacts on that of the other. There are common elements to each narrative, echoes that draw the stories together: the wedding-cake figurines, the baker’s fare, the cane-fields hut.
Wyld’s characters are real and flawed, characters for whom the reader can readily hope, be disappointed in and exult in minor triumphs. Their moods are deftly evoked: “With effort he stood up, ignored the squealed noises of the teacher, the weird electric sound of laughter, saw only that Amy Blackwell’s blue eyes watched him as he walked out of the classroom, away from the school, heavy enough that he might sink into the ground and suffocate, or else fall on the pavement and shatter into splinters”
Wyld touches on some topical and age-old issues: domestic violence; child abduction; the devastating effect of war on the combatants’ psyche; the lack of support for Vietnam Veterans; racial discrimination. Wyld has a talent for descriptive prose and conveys her settings with consummate ease: the humidity of the Vietnamese jungle, the sounds of the Queensland cane-field, the langour of a Sydney Christmas, all are vividly heard, seen and felt. A stunning debut.
After the Fire, a Still Small Voice is the first novel by prize-winning Anglo-Australian author, Evie Wyld. A story that spans three generations, it is told from the perspective of Frank, who, in the present day, is fleeing behaviour he is ashamed of; and of Leon, decades earlier, forced to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Frank arrives at Mulaburry, determined that life in his grandparents’ hut in the cane-fields will help him forget Lucy, the woman he mistreated. “The clearing was smaller than he remembered, like the cane had slunk closer to the pale wooden box hut. The banana tree stooped low over a corrugated roof”.
Having watched the broken remains of his father, once a master baker, return from the Korean War, Leon finds himself plucked from his own baking career to land in the jungles of Vietnam.
Wyld alternates the narratives so that the significant events of each man’s life are gradually revealed, and the reader learns how one man’s history impacts on that of the other. There are common elements to each narrative, echoes that draw the stories together: the wedding-cake figurines, the baker’s fare, the cane-fields hut.
Wyld’s characters are real and flawed, characters for whom the reader can readily hope, be disappointed in and exult in minor triumphs. Their moods are deftly evoked: “With effort he stood up, ignored the squealed noises of the teacher, the weird electric sound of laughter, saw only that Amy Blackwell’s blue eyes watched him as he walked out of the classroom, away from the school, heavy enough that he might sink into the ground and suffocate, or else fall on the pavement and shatter into splinters”
Wyld touches on some topical and age-old issues: domestic violence; child abduction; the devastating effect of war on the combatants’ psyche; the lack of support for Vietnam Veterans; racial discrimination. Wyld has a talent for descriptive prose and conveys her settings with consummate ease: the humidity of the Vietnamese jungle, the sounds of the Queensland cane-field, the langour of a Sydney Christmas, all are vividly heard, seen and felt. A stunning debut.
December 24, 2009
I’ve been meaning to read this book ever since I came across Evie Wyld’s excellent short story ‘Menzies Meat’ in the summer. In the intervening months, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice has won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and received near-unanimous praise – now here’s some more.
What’s particularly striking about the novel, looking back on it as a whole, is how quiet it is; it’s probably the quietest book I’ve read all year. Its tone is quiet, its theme is quietness – the things that aren’t said, and the possible consequences of not saying them. Wyld’s debut is a character study revolving around two men: one is Frank, who leaves his life in present-day Canberra to live in a remote shack his grandparents owned, and hopes that the past will stay where he left it. The second man is Leon, whom we follow from childhood: his father leaves home to fight in the Korean War, but struggles with life when he returns, so much so that he ends up fleeing. Leon’s mother goes in search of her husband, leaving the young man to cope on his own – and then Leon receives a letter of conscription for Vietnam. Leon, by the way, is Frank’s father.
Typing that last sentence almost feels like a spoiler, though there’s no real reason why it should. It’s not that Wyld is keeping the relationship secret to provide a surprise twist; rather, it’s that the story she tells never demands the connection be stated. The two narratives are kept separate, and there’s a gap between the young Leon and the father we glimpse in Frank’s tale (we can speculate on what drives Leon to become the man he is in the present, but we don’t have the full story). In effect, the central father-son relationship of the novel is hardly in the novel at all – the theme of silence between men (and between generations of men) is reflected at the broadest structural level.
That same theme is also there at the level of plot, as both protagonists have to deal with the consequences of things left unspoken. Frank doesn’t reveal much about himself to the people of his new town, which comes back to bite him before novel’s end; and Leon finds it hard to talk to his father when the latter returns from service – even after so long apart, silence around the dinner table seems more appropriate than facile questions that could never reveal the truth of what Leon’s father witnessed.
There’s silence, too, in the very language of the book. This is a novel in which sensations seem more prominent than actions. Wyld is a great writer of description; here, for example, is Leon after hearing that his father has been caught:
After the Fire is full of such vivid imagery (of place as well as of feeling) that jumps out; but there are also highly significant points which come across as relatively subdued. For example, when we first learn that Frank beat his wife, it’s dropped in casually; one might even have to go back and re-read, just to check that’s what has been revealed. Character hints are dropped in subtly, suggesting that these are things the protagonist don’t know about themselves. Frank doesn’t know why he gets so aggressive, for example; nor does Leon understand what makes him want to photograph a boy he kills in Vietnam – and we don’t comprehend the minds of these characters, either. Though we see the novel through their eyes, there is still much they don’t (or can’t) tell us.
I don’t know whether I’d go so far as to call Frank and Leon antiheroes; but they’re not entirely sympathetic protagonists, either. What we have here, I think, is a portrait of two flawed men trying to cope with life’s challenges the best they can – which isn’t necessarily the best way there could be. After the Fire, a Still Small Voice tells a very real story; and, quiet though it may be, it’s a novel that resounds loudly.
What’s particularly striking about the novel, looking back on it as a whole, is how quiet it is; it’s probably the quietest book I’ve read all year. Its tone is quiet, its theme is quietness – the things that aren’t said, and the possible consequences of not saying them. Wyld’s debut is a character study revolving around two men: one is Frank, who leaves his life in present-day Canberra to live in a remote shack his grandparents owned, and hopes that the past will stay where he left it. The second man is Leon, whom we follow from childhood: his father leaves home to fight in the Korean War, but struggles with life when he returns, so much so that he ends up fleeing. Leon’s mother goes in search of her husband, leaving the young man to cope on his own – and then Leon receives a letter of conscription for Vietnam. Leon, by the way, is Frank’s father.
Typing that last sentence almost feels like a spoiler, though there’s no real reason why it should. It’s not that Wyld is keeping the relationship secret to provide a surprise twist; rather, it’s that the story she tells never demands the connection be stated. The two narratives are kept separate, and there’s a gap between the young Leon and the father we glimpse in Frank’s tale (we can speculate on what drives Leon to become the man he is in the present, but we don’t have the full story). In effect, the central father-son relationship of the novel is hardly in the novel at all – the theme of silence between men (and between generations of men) is reflected at the broadest structural level.
That same theme is also there at the level of plot, as both protagonists have to deal with the consequences of things left unspoken. Frank doesn’t reveal much about himself to the people of his new town, which comes back to bite him before novel’s end; and Leon finds it hard to talk to his father when the latter returns from service – even after so long apart, silence around the dinner table seems more appropriate than facile questions that could never reveal the truth of what Leon’s father witnessed.
There’s silence, too, in the very language of the book. This is a novel in which sensations seem more prominent than actions. Wyld is a great writer of description; here, for example, is Leon after hearing that his father has been caught:
At school things caught at his hair and plucked at the back of his trousers. His pen moved slowly across the page, ink swelled into the paper. He felt himself trapped between the bone and flesh of his face, and he couldn’t move. Everyone else’s hands moved at impossible speed over their work, the noises of the classroom were high-pitched and speeded up, made no sense. He felt his own body, a sluggish weight, pale and thick, a rock with a wooden shell. With effort he stood up…he walked out of the classroom, away from the school, heavy enough that he might sink into the ground and suffocate, or else fall on the pavement and shatter into splinters.
After the Fire is full of such vivid imagery (of place as well as of feeling) that jumps out; but there are also highly significant points which come across as relatively subdued. For example, when we first learn that Frank beat his wife, it’s dropped in casually; one might even have to go back and re-read, just to check that’s what has been revealed. Character hints are dropped in subtly, suggesting that these are things the protagonist don’t know about themselves. Frank doesn’t know why he gets so aggressive, for example; nor does Leon understand what makes him want to photograph a boy he kills in Vietnam – and we don’t comprehend the minds of these characters, either. Though we see the novel through their eyes, there is still much they don’t (or can’t) tell us.
I don’t know whether I’d go so far as to call Frank and Leon antiheroes; but they’re not entirely sympathetic protagonists, either. What we have here, I think, is a portrait of two flawed men trying to cope with life’s challenges the best they can – which isn’t necessarily the best way there could be. After the Fire, a Still Small Voice tells a very real story; and, quiet though it may be, it’s a novel that resounds loudly.
May 29, 2013
While I was reading ‘After The Fire…’, I came across this quote:
“Remember, there are two kinds of light: the steady blue flame at the heart of darkness and the false, desperate sunshine of the cheery countenance.”(1)
I’m fairly certain Evie Wyld wrote this book by the light of that steady blue flame, and not in the sunshine. It’s fairly unrelenting. I would say it’s part claustrophobia, part introspection, but mostly violence. Lots of different shades of violence.
It’s certainly an ambitious book. In fewer than 300 pages, it spans three generations and more than fifty years, offering up more than ten significant characters. It casts its net over the Korean War, the Vietnam War, domestic violence, immigration, racism, religion, terminal illness and relationship breakdown. For me, it was a case of too many marionettes and not enough stage space.
Violence is the one element common to all characters and settings, but it’s not a homogenous violence. On the one hand, there is the barefaced, raw hideousness of war and killing, the open wounds it leaves behind, and the way its legacy cripples subsequent generations. Both Leon and his father are left broken men, and their brokenness is handed down to Frank, who doesn’t ever quite know what to do about it. We are privy to the shooting and the blood and guts of war, but also to the broken homes, alcoholism and mental illness it trails behind in its wake.
There’s also the insidious, concealed terror of domestic violence, and violence against women more broadly. And I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think about it, or about the fates that Wyld dishes out to her women characters. It doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, at any rate – there’s not one instance in which female characters interact with one another in relation to anything except the male protagonist.
At the relatively anodyne end of the spectrum, Wyld gets Leon’s mother Maureen to take hot baths to escape her misery, and sends her north to the shack to look after her war-scarred husband. She escapes with ‘only’ a fat lip and a bruise after an argument with Leon’s father. But this is the tail end of a swathe of violence the women in the book encounter –
There's also a strange, brutal, and unnecessary scene in which Frank encounters a woman in the kitchen, wearing his mother's dress. She becomes a kind of grotesque carnival parody of femaleness, willingly offering herself when she assumes that schoolboy Frank ripping open her dress is a violent come-on, laughing maniacally all the while: ‘he went for her, tearing at the dress to get it off, looking for a fastening to rip at; and she dropped her sandwich on the floor, but was laughing.’ Frank’s response is to repress a droog-like impulse –
'He saw himself kicking her square in the face, the feel of his shoe against the smash of her nose. But he didn't do it.'
Even the novel’s setting is volatile, – it’s ‘a special place, got enough violence in the dirt to strike a cow dead’. For one, there’s the omnipresent racist violence bubbling under the surface. Stuart is its most vocal and ugly embodiment – the closest the book comes to a catharsis is when Frank throws a beer in Stuart’s face. Decades earlier, Leon’s Dutch mother is also subjected to a vicious racist tirade when she confronts the mother of Leon’s classmate about a fight the two boys had.
The other thematic constant in the novel is probably the idea of migration. Leon’s parents migrate once to Australia, and his father then retreats into himself, an inner migration from which he never really returns. Leon’s life appears to follow the same trajectory
There’s beauty in the language, with polished diamonds scattered through the book, like this one – 'A flock of spoonbills were passing over, their shadows zipping like mice over the ground'. I’m a bit over the ‘unnamed black thing’ trope, though, in which there is an nameless something slinking at the edges of a character’s consciousness, dark and dangerous. ‘If it thinks I’m asleep, it’ll leave me alone, as long as I don’t move it will drag itself past my bed’. What is it? Depression? Terror? Interior demons made flesh? I think it’s a lazy way to convey menace.
The book has left me with a few more questions, some more pernickety than others:
1. The title. ‘After the fire, a still, small voice’. Its biblical origin is only a google search away, but I’m still not sure what I think it means. Here’s the quote, from 1 Kings 19:11:
And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
An equally brief google search turns up the following interpretation – that ‘gracious souls are more affected by the tender mercies of the Lord, than by his terrors.' So perhaps it’s about the significance of tender mercies. I struggle to find them, in the book, to be honest.
If anyone embodies these tender mercies, though, it’s Sal, that raggedy little wood sprite of a girl who flits in and out of the sugar cane and Frank’s life in the hut. She’s by far the best character, for my money, and her apprenticeship as a farmhand to Frank is one of the most tender relationships in the book.
2. Sometimes the vernacular seems to be, well, wrong. There are a few jarring instances in which someone says ‘see youse later’, but to only one person. I haven’t heard that before, but I haven’t left Sydney for a while, either. Also, Leon’s parents are Dutch. But his mother’s name is Maureen, and his uncles’ names are Harold, David, Thomas and Charlie, all of which strike me as being pretty uncommon names for Dutch Jews. Have I missed something, or did the editor go get a cup of tea and lose their place?
3. Is there a significance to the novel being partially set in a cake shop? Or is it all an elaborate setup, just to facilitate the scene in which the marzipan cake figures of Frank’s parents and grandparents dissolve symbolically in the ocean?
4. The blurb promises that – ‘we learn what binds together Frank and Leon, and what may end up keeping them apart’. What is that, exactly? What binds them together may very well be a penchant for hitting women, getting drunk and going to war, not necessarily in that order. But what exactly is keeping them apart?
In any case, I’m looking forward to working my way through the remainder of the Granta Best Young British Novelists list, which is where I got the tip-off for this one.
(1)Daily Afflictions, Andrew Boyd, p10
Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe
“Remember, there are two kinds of light: the steady blue flame at the heart of darkness and the false, desperate sunshine of the cheery countenance.”(1)
I’m fairly certain Evie Wyld wrote this book by the light of that steady blue flame, and not in the sunshine. It’s fairly unrelenting. I would say it’s part claustrophobia, part introspection, but mostly violence. Lots of different shades of violence.
It’s certainly an ambitious book. In fewer than 300 pages, it spans three generations and more than fifty years, offering up more than ten significant characters. It casts its net over the Korean War, the Vietnam War, domestic violence, immigration, racism, religion, terminal illness and relationship breakdown. For me, it was a case of too many marionettes and not enough stage space.
Violence is the one element common to all characters and settings, but it’s not a homogenous violence. On the one hand, there is the barefaced, raw hideousness of war and killing, the open wounds it leaves behind, and the way its legacy cripples subsequent generations. Both Leon and his father are left broken men, and their brokenness is handed down to Frank, who doesn’t ever quite know what to do about it. We are privy to the shooting and the blood and guts of war, but also to the broken homes, alcoholism and mental illness it trails behind in its wake.
There’s also the insidious, concealed terror of domestic violence, and violence against women more broadly. And I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think about it, or about the fates that Wyld dishes out to her women characters. It doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, at any rate – there’s not one instance in which female characters interact with one another in relation to anything except the male protagonist.
At the relatively anodyne end of the spectrum, Wyld gets Leon’s mother Maureen to take hot baths to escape her misery, and sends her north to the shack to look after her war-scarred husband. She escapes with ‘only’ a fat lip and a bruise after an argument with Leon’s father. But this is the tail end of a swathe of violence the women in the book encounter –
There's also a strange, brutal, and unnecessary scene in which Frank encounters a woman in the kitchen, wearing his mother's dress. She becomes a kind of grotesque carnival parody of femaleness, willingly offering herself when she assumes that schoolboy Frank ripping open her dress is a violent come-on, laughing maniacally all the while: ‘he went for her, tearing at the dress to get it off, looking for a fastening to rip at; and she dropped her sandwich on the floor, but was laughing.’ Frank’s response is to repress a droog-like impulse –
'He saw himself kicking her square in the face, the feel of his shoe against the smash of her nose. But he didn't do it.'
Even the novel’s setting is volatile, – it’s ‘a special place, got enough violence in the dirt to strike a cow dead’. For one, there’s the omnipresent racist violence bubbling under the surface. Stuart is its most vocal and ugly embodiment – the closest the book comes to a catharsis is when Frank throws a beer in Stuart’s face. Decades earlier, Leon’s Dutch mother is also subjected to a vicious racist tirade when she confronts the mother of Leon’s classmate about a fight the two boys had.
The other thematic constant in the novel is probably the idea of migration. Leon’s parents migrate once to Australia, and his father then retreats into himself, an inner migration from which he never really returns. Leon’s life appears to follow the same trajectory
There’s beauty in the language, with polished diamonds scattered through the book, like this one – 'A flock of spoonbills were passing over, their shadows zipping like mice over the ground'. I’m a bit over the ‘unnamed black thing’ trope, though, in which there is an nameless something slinking at the edges of a character’s consciousness, dark and dangerous. ‘If it thinks I’m asleep, it’ll leave me alone, as long as I don’t move it will drag itself past my bed’. What is it? Depression? Terror? Interior demons made flesh? I think it’s a lazy way to convey menace.
The book has left me with a few more questions, some more pernickety than others:
1. The title. ‘After the fire, a still, small voice’. Its biblical origin is only a google search away, but I’m still not sure what I think it means. Here’s the quote, from 1 Kings 19:11:
And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
An equally brief google search turns up the following interpretation – that ‘gracious souls are more affected by the tender mercies of the Lord, than by his terrors.' So perhaps it’s about the significance of tender mercies. I struggle to find them, in the book, to be honest.
If anyone embodies these tender mercies, though, it’s Sal, that raggedy little wood sprite of a girl who flits in and out of the sugar cane and Frank’s life in the hut. She’s by far the best character, for my money, and her apprenticeship as a farmhand to Frank is one of the most tender relationships in the book.
2. Sometimes the vernacular seems to be, well, wrong. There are a few jarring instances in which someone says ‘see youse later’, but to only one person. I haven’t heard that before, but I haven’t left Sydney for a while, either. Also, Leon’s parents are Dutch. But his mother’s name is Maureen, and his uncles’ names are Harold, David, Thomas and Charlie, all of which strike me as being pretty uncommon names for Dutch Jews. Have I missed something, or did the editor go get a cup of tea and lose their place?
3. Is there a significance to the novel being partially set in a cake shop? Or is it all an elaborate setup, just to facilitate the scene in which the marzipan cake figures of Frank’s parents and grandparents dissolve symbolically in the ocean?
4. The blurb promises that – ‘we learn what binds together Frank and Leon, and what may end up keeping them apart’. What is that, exactly? What binds them together may very well be a penchant for hitting women, getting drunk and going to war, not necessarily in that order. But what exactly is keeping them apart?
In any case, I’m looking forward to working my way through the remainder of the Granta Best Young British Novelists list, which is where I got the tip-off for this one.
(1)Daily Afflictions, Andrew Boyd, p10
Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe
March 7, 2016
Strange choice of subject matter for a first time young female novelist. Evie Wyld has chosen to write a novel about male worlds as rudimentary and imminently violent as the landscapes in which her novel is set. Clearly a choice that took her way outside all her comfort zones. I’m not convinced it was the right choice as, for me, she never quite appeared in command of her characters or her story. The story alternates between a father and a son. Except the father is always shown younger than the son, which is interesting. However it’s as if the father begins to elude Wyld half way through the novel and his sections become shorter and shorter and the architecture becomes increasingly uneven when Leon is sent to Vietnam. Vietnam isn’t convincing. Nor is the defining animosity the son appears to feel for the father. In fact often her characterisation of males seems a bit stereotypical and simplistic. What she can do however is write incredibly well. My favourite character was Sal, a female waif and child of nature and my favourite sections of the book are when Leon is making his cakes. Wyld’s insightful sensitivity to sensibility shines through here, making it even more odd that she chooses to almost exclusively focus on characters who largely shun sensibility. After the Fire is more of a promising novel than an exciting or satisfying one. But there’s enough brilliance here to make me want to read her next novel.
June 7, 2016
This is not an easy book to write about or a comfortable read, but it is an impressive debut novel. The story alternates between the modern part, which follows Frank as he moves to his grandparents abandoned beach house to regroup after an abusive relationship, but gets caught up in local problems. The other part follows Frank's father Leon, first coming to terms with his own father's traumatic experiences of the Korean war and then as a conscript in Vietnam. These family stories are mixed with atmospheric descriptions of wild Australia, and the overall tone is a mixture of the reflective, the claustrophobic and the slightly menacing.
March 29, 2023
If you know Evie Wyld, you know that you will be jumping around in time in her narrative. You will know that youthful experience, and/or misadventure will inform the outcome of later life. You will also recognise phantoms, the shadows, the nightmarish.
This was Wyld’s debut novel and the style that makes her writing so atmospheric is on full display. And its excellent.
True to form a shark (a Tiger shark) makes its way into the narrative (Wyld’s lifelong fascination).
In this novel the horror of war, in Korea, and in Vietnam, casts its shadow. How history repeats itself. The scars of war don’t just reveal themselves in the jungle(s) , but continue to manifest themselves back home, in Australia. Wyld offsets the casual violence back ‘home’ with the killing fields, mostly by drawing on the simmering hostility felt by some sections of Australian society (young and old) towards the native Australians (Aboriginals) they encounter.
As the book moves towards its end, the characters take on an ethereal quality. There’s no enduring peace after lifetimes of abandonment and blame. It should be a depressing, disquieting story, but in Wylde’s capable hands redemption is ultimately not discounted.
Excellent book, and one to recommend.
This was Wyld’s debut novel and the style that makes her writing so atmospheric is on full display. And its excellent.
True to form a shark (a Tiger shark) makes its way into the narrative (Wyld’s lifelong fascination).
In this novel the horror of war, in Korea, and in Vietnam, casts its shadow. How history repeats itself. The scars of war don’t just reveal themselves in the jungle(s) , but continue to manifest themselves back home, in Australia. Wyld offsets the casual violence back ‘home’ with the killing fields, mostly by drawing on the simmering hostility felt by some sections of Australian society (young and old) towards the native Australians (Aboriginals) they encounter.
As the book moves towards its end, the characters take on an ethereal quality. There’s no enduring peace after lifetimes of abandonment and blame. It should be a depressing, disquieting story, but in Wylde’s capable hands redemption is ultimately not discounted.
Excellent book, and one to recommend.
May 27, 2011
A most impressive debut by a very talented writer.
Evie Wyld identifies herself as English, but there is an Australian sensibility about this novel that derives from her long acquaintance with this country. It’s not just the superb evocation of our landscape, it’s also Wyld’s familiarity with the way Aussie blokes bottle up their emotions as if to let them loose is to fail a test of male identity. This is a novel about the intergenerational damage done by war, explored from that curious Australian perspective, one that is blind to the histories of refugees and migrants who come here from war-torn places, but is acutely sensitive to the ANZAC myth and its successors.
To see the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
Evie Wyld identifies herself as English, but there is an Australian sensibility about this novel that derives from her long acquaintance with this country. It’s not just the superb evocation of our landscape, it’s also Wyld’s familiarity with the way Aussie blokes bottle up their emotions as if to let them loose is to fail a test of male identity. This is a novel about the intergenerational damage done by war, explored from that curious Australian perspective, one that is blind to the histories of refugees and migrants who come here from war-torn places, but is acutely sensitive to the ANZAC myth and its successors.
To see the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
November 20, 2009
Partly to try and offset the impact of some reviews I just don't understand, I'm going to review this book now.
It's. Really. Friggin. Good.
Honestly, if you like books that take you away from yourself, if you enjoy Peter Carey, Tim Winton, John McGahern, Richard Powers, books where landscape and place are another character, where human beings live the same messy lives we all do then please give this book a try. The last fifty pages had me completely compelled, turning pages as quickly as I could to find out what happens but knowing then I'd have to put the book down.
Read this book and I promise you'll be thinking about it for a long time afterwards.
It's. Really. Friggin. Good.
Honestly, if you like books that take you away from yourself, if you enjoy Peter Carey, Tim Winton, John McGahern, Richard Powers, books where landscape and place are another character, where human beings live the same messy lives we all do then please give this book a try. The last fifty pages had me completely compelled, turning pages as quickly as I could to find out what happens but knowing then I'd have to put the book down.
Read this book and I promise you'll be thinking about it for a long time afterwards.
July 8, 2023
Ne želim da dam Evie Wyld manje od 3⭐ pre svega zato što bih čitala i njen spisak za kupovinu. Takođe ne mogu da kažem da se vidi da joj je prvenac, zato što ona fenomenalno piše i čak je tema teža za obrađivanje u odnosu na njene ostale romane, a sam odabir pomalo čudan. Navikla sam da su njeni glavni likovi žene i uopšte mi nije prijalo da se ovoliko družim sa dva muškarca, pritom mi je Leon koji prolazi kroz vijetnamski rat bio zanimljiviji.
Priča me nije našla/držala i žao mi je što sam zaređala knjige koje su mi dosadne sad kad sam odlučila da "čistim" sve one koje me baš dugo čekaju.
Priča me nije našla/držala i žao mi je što sam zaređala knjige koje su mi dosadne sad kad sam odlučila da "čistim" sve one koje me baš dugo čekaju.
September 26, 2025
3,5
Sometimes, all you learn from your parents' mistakes is how to make different ones of your own.
Sometimes, all you learn from your parents' mistakes is how to make different ones of your own.
July 9, 2012
Present day... Frank has left Sydney for small-town Queensland.
A generation ago... Leon leaves Sydney after being conscripted to fight in Vietnam.
After the Fire tells the story of these two men. Chapter 1 Frank, Chapter 2 Leon, Chapter 3 Frank, Chapter 4 Leon, Chapter 5 Frank.... oh, you get the drift. The format is reassuringly consistent.
Let me start with the good stuff, the reasons I've given this book 3 stars. First and foremost, the writing is beautiful - there's a good reason that this has garnered the attention of awards judges. The prose was evocative without being intrusive. It was a pleasure to read.
Next on the good side was the message I got out of it, although it might not have been the message that the author had intended. About how the petty dramas of our normal days seem more massive than they should when compared side-by-side with the devastation of war. Well, that's the main thing that I take away from it, although I know that it was probably only a sub-theme. Anyway, it was a powerful one.
Now, the not so positive things, the reasons this book only gets 3 stars.
Let me start with Chapter 1. Interminable. Chapter 1 felt like it took forever. It might have been me, but I think it was Frank. Oh gosh, that was a long first chapter about a boring, boorish man. I might have got to appreciate him at the end, but certainly not in that first chapter. Thank God for Chapter 2.
And that leads me to the second problem. Leon's story was riveting, Frank's was a fair bit less riveting. I spent half the book hoping that Leon's story would never end, the other hoping that Frank's story would. And that's not a great way for a novel to position itself.
I feel terribly sad that I have only given such a beautifully written novel 3 stars. I so wish the structure of it hadn't gotten in the way.
A generation ago... Leon leaves Sydney after being conscripted to fight in Vietnam.
After the Fire tells the story of these two men. Chapter 1 Frank, Chapter 2 Leon, Chapter 3 Frank, Chapter 4 Leon, Chapter 5 Frank.... oh, you get the drift. The format is reassuringly consistent.
Let me start with the good stuff, the reasons I've given this book 3 stars. First and foremost, the writing is beautiful - there's a good reason that this has garnered the attention of awards judges. The prose was evocative without being intrusive. It was a pleasure to read.
Next on the good side was the message I got out of it, although it might not have been the message that the author had intended. About how the petty dramas of our normal days seem more massive than they should when compared side-by-side with the devastation of war. Well, that's the main thing that I take away from it, although I know that it was probably only a sub-theme. Anyway, it was a powerful one.
Now, the not so positive things, the reasons this book only gets 3 stars.
Let me start with Chapter 1. Interminable. Chapter 1 felt like it took forever. It might have been me, but I think it was Frank. Oh gosh, that was a long first chapter about a boring, boorish man. I might have got to appreciate him at the end, but certainly not in that first chapter. Thank God for Chapter 2.
And that leads me to the second problem. Leon's story was riveting, Frank's was a fair bit less riveting. I spent half the book hoping that Leon's story would never end, the other hoping that Frank's story would. And that's not a great way for a novel to position itself.
I feel terribly sad that I have only given such a beautifully written novel 3 stars. I so wish the structure of it hadn't gotten in the way.
November 14, 2016
A beautifully-written book, but unfortunately I just couldn't get into the story; kept waiting for something to happen. I can see why other readers could love it though, the dialogue and narration is stunning.
February 29, 2012
This is, by far, one of the best books I have read this year. It is written in a poetic, character driven narrative by an author who appears much wiser than her years.
The story is a multi-generational dynamic of men in a family - men who have gone to war, are prone to violence and find it hard to use words to discuss their feelings. Instead of words they use alcohol, violence and avoidance.
Leon's father is a baker in Australia who signs on to fight in the Korean War. When he returns he is not the same. His post-traumatic stress disorder creates constant fear and anger in him. He leaves his family and Leon's mother follows after him, leaving Leon alone to run the bakery when he is just nineteen. Leon is shortly thereafter conscripted into the Vietnam War where he sees atrocities and develops a propensity towards violence such that he is closed off from his wife and son, Frank.
The novel alternates between two characters and stories 40 years apart - the story of Leon and that of his son Frank. As the novel begins, Frank has just been left by his girlfriend because of his aggression and violence. He goes to live in the country in a small bungalow that belonged to his grandfather, Leon's father. There he finds work and friendship though his life is fraught with fear - fear of what is lurking in the waters and in the cane fields. He is also afraid of the fear that constantly lurks in his heart. He drinks too much and feels the weight of his anxieties at every turn. As the novel opens we also learn about Leon, Frank's father, working in a bakery 40 years before with his father. The family is close and the art of baking is passed on lovingly from father to son until Leon's father goes to war and comes back isolated, frightened, and unable to connect with others.
Leon, like his father before him, returns from war a lost soul. His wife dies young and he turns to drink. He finds it nearly impossible to raise his son Frank in any way that requires intimacy or rational planning. He is not even able to pack a lunch for Frank. One lunch pail contained a pair of sardines without an opener and a pair of socks.
In the backdrop of Frank's narrative, there is a story of young girls disappearing from the area and being killed. This adds to Frank's fears as he has befriended a neighbor girl, Sal, who is seven years old. He fears for her.
I found the early descriptions of Leon and his father working in their bakery to be beautifully wrought. Evie Wyld writes with a loving, perspicacious and brutal tongue. She is a writer to watch and I hope to read more of her work soon.
The story is a multi-generational dynamic of men in a family - men who have gone to war, are prone to violence and find it hard to use words to discuss their feelings. Instead of words they use alcohol, violence and avoidance.
Leon's father is a baker in Australia who signs on to fight in the Korean War. When he returns he is not the same. His post-traumatic stress disorder creates constant fear and anger in him. He leaves his family and Leon's mother follows after him, leaving Leon alone to run the bakery when he is just nineteen. Leon is shortly thereafter conscripted into the Vietnam War where he sees atrocities and develops a propensity towards violence such that he is closed off from his wife and son, Frank.
The novel alternates between two characters and stories 40 years apart - the story of Leon and that of his son Frank. As the novel begins, Frank has just been left by his girlfriend because of his aggression and violence. He goes to live in the country in a small bungalow that belonged to his grandfather, Leon's father. There he finds work and friendship though his life is fraught with fear - fear of what is lurking in the waters and in the cane fields. He is also afraid of the fear that constantly lurks in his heart. He drinks too much and feels the weight of his anxieties at every turn. As the novel opens we also learn about Leon, Frank's father, working in a bakery 40 years before with his father. The family is close and the art of baking is passed on lovingly from father to son until Leon's father goes to war and comes back isolated, frightened, and unable to connect with others.
Leon, like his father before him, returns from war a lost soul. His wife dies young and he turns to drink. He finds it nearly impossible to raise his son Frank in any way that requires intimacy or rational planning. He is not even able to pack a lunch for Frank. One lunch pail contained a pair of sardines without an opener and a pair of socks.
In the backdrop of Frank's narrative, there is a story of young girls disappearing from the area and being killed. This adds to Frank's fears as he has befriended a neighbor girl, Sal, who is seven years old. He fears for her.
I found the early descriptions of Leon and his father working in their bakery to be beautifully wrought. Evie Wyld writes with a loving, perspicacious and brutal tongue. She is a writer to watch and I hope to read more of her work soon.
October 9, 2009
Quite an ambitious debut novel for this Australian writer. I like her prose style and her ability to create a sense of atmosphere in the story.
Remember that old saying about the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children? I think this story shows how the wounds of the fathers are passed down to the sons through the generations.
The story is set in Australia. Chapters alternate between Frank and his father Leon, although the story covers three generations, including Leon's father as well. Frank's story takes place in current times. Dumped by his girlfriend and estranged from his father, he goes to live in an old shack near the sea that belonged to his grandfather. He battles his inability to "get his life together" and tries to make some sense of the long-term anger he has directed at his father.
The father Leon's story is told from his long-ago boyhood up through his service in Vietnam and the mess his life became upon return from that war.
Leon's parents were Dutch Jews and came to Australia when their own country became hostile to them in the 1930's during Hitler's rise to power. Leon's father was proud to serve his adopted country in the Korean War, but he came back utterly broken inside and unable to function in the world. This set Leon up to be essentially alone in the world as a teenager, hurt and lost and confused by his parents' behavior. When he is later conscripted and sent to Vietnam, he comes home broken inside just like his father and is unable to be a proper father to Frank.
This is not a fast-paced grabber of a book, but Evie Wyld really captures how old hurts are carried down within a family. She does it quietly and steadily, without a lot of drama or flash. And it's also a nice way to learn a little more about life in Australia and the attitudes of the people there.
Remember that old saying about the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children? I think this story shows how the wounds of the fathers are passed down to the sons through the generations.
The story is set in Australia. Chapters alternate between Frank and his father Leon, although the story covers three generations, including Leon's father as well. Frank's story takes place in current times. Dumped by his girlfriend and estranged from his father, he goes to live in an old shack near the sea that belonged to his grandfather. He battles his inability to "get his life together" and tries to make some sense of the long-term anger he has directed at his father.
The father Leon's story is told from his long-ago boyhood up through his service in Vietnam and the mess his life became upon return from that war.
Leon's parents were Dutch Jews and came to Australia when their own country became hostile to them in the 1930's during Hitler's rise to power. Leon's father was proud to serve his adopted country in the Korean War, but he came back utterly broken inside and unable to function in the world. This set Leon up to be essentially alone in the world as a teenager, hurt and lost and confused by his parents' behavior. When he is later conscripted and sent to Vietnam, he comes home broken inside just like his father and is unable to be a proper father to Frank.
This is not a fast-paced grabber of a book, but Evie Wyld really captures how old hurts are carried down within a family. She does it quietly and steadily, without a lot of drama or flash. And it's also a nice way to learn a little more about life in Australia and the attitudes of the people there.
November 22, 2009
In a word, awful. This has to have been one of the worst books I have ever read. I kept reading, thinking there would be some huge climax or reveal at the end, and it was nothing. How this book has a 4.0 rating is beyond me, although only 16 people have read it at this point. They must be really deep. A shallow person like myself, I can hardly wait to move on to something with a plot or at least a point.
February 7, 2017
The reading experience for me in a nutshell:
That's not review actually describing the book, but what my initial thoughts were.
1. "I really liked "All the Birds, Singing". Gritty, raw, a strong, female protagonist, not just a walking stereotype or cardboard cut-out. Jake felt real. Multi-layered, not one-dimensional. Something the characters lack in this novel: motivation, personality, an agenda. I'm not sure why I should root for any of them nor why I should be interested in their fate. That's not a likability-question, I just think the characters are badly, BADLY written. And I'm not sure which ones received the worst fate. The female characters, all of them in "Manic Pixie Dream Girl"-territory, or the walking male stereotype (Only interested in physical activity, going to the loo and drinking beer celebrating bromance with their unappealing, not very interesting, barely mentioned and relatively irrelevant "mates") Frank or Bob.
2. I had the feeling the novel could've worked easily as a short-story. Why not focus on the "family trauma", the "elephant in the room", the PTSD-episodes nearly every character faces? Why extend on the war scenes? (And I understand her interest in the subjects of "Australians in the Vietnam-War" or "Australians during the Korean War", I really do. But she barely touched the surface of the "Australian experience"...) Why was the "Sal"-plot even relevant?
3. The pacing, oh, the pacing. The story took way too long to take of, it was quite hard to not lose interest and some scenes felt... irrelevant to pointless? (The desert-scene...)
4. The book wasn't bad. Some books are so badly written they feel like a car crash, you cannot look away, you have some fun tearing them apart. It's well-written for the most-part, and Evie Wyld proved herself to be a good writer to me with "All the Birds, Singing". It's not a bad, but disappointing read. Flat, very very flat. Like a pancake. Yes, "After the Fire, a Still Small Voice" feels like a very flat, not very fluffy pancake, barely edible, just enjoyable with lots and lots of fruits or maple syrup. Which you have to buy extra. After 8 o'clock in the evening, all the shops closed.
(5. That's not something I hold against the author but whoever wrote the blurb to this book. Shame on you, sir/lady, shame on you!)
That's not review actually describing the book, but what my initial thoughts were.
1. "I really liked "All the Birds, Singing". Gritty, raw, a strong, female protagonist, not just a walking stereotype or cardboard cut-out. Jake felt real. Multi-layered, not one-dimensional. Something the characters lack in this novel: motivation, personality, an agenda. I'm not sure why I should root for any of them nor why I should be interested in their fate. That's not a likability-question, I just think the characters are badly, BADLY written. And I'm not sure which ones received the worst fate. The female characters, all of them in "Manic Pixie Dream Girl"-territory, or the walking male stereotype (Only interested in physical activity, going to the loo and drinking beer celebrating bromance with their unappealing, not very interesting, barely mentioned and relatively irrelevant "mates") Frank or Bob.
2. I had the feeling the novel could've worked easily as a short-story. Why not focus on the "family trauma", the "elephant in the room", the PTSD-episodes nearly every character faces? Why extend on the war scenes? (And I understand her interest in the subjects of "Australians in the Vietnam-War" or "Australians during the Korean War", I really do. But she barely touched the surface of the "Australian experience"...) Why was the "Sal"-plot even relevant?
3. The pacing, oh, the pacing. The story took way too long to take of, it was quite hard to not lose interest and some scenes felt... irrelevant to pointless? (The desert-scene...)
4. The book wasn't bad. Some books are so badly written they feel like a car crash, you cannot look away, you have some fun tearing them apart. It's well-written for the most-part, and Evie Wyld proved herself to be a good writer to me with "All the Birds, Singing". It's not a bad, but disappointing read. Flat, very very flat. Like a pancake. Yes, "After the Fire, a Still Small Voice" feels like a very flat, not very fluffy pancake, barely edible, just enjoyable with lots and lots of fruits or maple syrup. Which you have to buy extra. After 8 o'clock in the evening, all the shops closed.
(5. That's not something I hold against the author but whoever wrote the blurb to this book. Shame on you, sir/lady, shame on you!)
April 8, 2011
There's some exquisite writing here. I envy Evie Wyld's clean, unvarnished style. Beautifully composed, with startling, vivid imagery in so many places. This book has bold ambitions, which I really liked it for. Parallel stories, separated by forty years, of a father and son - the father being younger than the son for much of the narrative. Each of the journeys is quite compelling, although Leon, the father's, story initially held me more. I really enjoyed the sections about his childhood in the cake shop when his own father left to go to the Korean war. And then when Leon, in turn, leaves the shop, conscripted to fight in Vietnam, there's a lovely symmetry to the experiences. Leon's son, Frank's, strand has more of a slow boil to it, although there are some nicely planted clues of what is ahead for him. His encounter with a shark is wonderfully portentous. Each strand reaches a climactic sequence that rewards the parallel structuring - but I'm not sure if the ending gave me everything that I had hoped for. I wouldn't have minded more of a big red bow to nicely tie everything up. There are deliberate loose ends and I sort of wish there weren't, really. However, that doesn't wreck an impressive debut. Very much looking forward to what Evie Wyld writes next.
November 2, 2009
This was an impulse pick - I chose it for the title, and because it's set in Australia. What an incredible find! It' a first novel, described by the author herself as a "romantic thriller about men not talking". The story moves back and forth between father and son. This is a construction that in my opinion can be very confusing and interrupting, but here it really does serve to illustrate a generational legacy of sorrow and isolation. I was riveted.
January 28, 2021
Kun luin Evie Wyldin esikoisteosta After the fire, a still small voice aamulla ennen töihinlähtöä (eli työhuoneeseen siirtymistä ja läppärin avaamista) lukiessa tuntui, että kirja ei toimi yhtään, vaan on vain päämäärätöntä kahden miehen seisahtuneen elämän kuvausta. Ihmettelin, mikä tässä on pointtina.
Mutta kun avasin kirjan illalla sohvannurkassa - paremmalla mielellä ja pidemmäksi aikaa kerrallaan - alkoi Wyldin proosa kolista. Romaanista avautui unenomaisia, tunnelmaan ja tunteeseen keskittyviä kohtauksia, kun asetin itseni niilel alttiiksi.
Wyldin romaani kertoo kahdesta miehestä, jotka yrittävät löytää paikkaansa Australian syrjäseuduilla ja erilaisten perhe- ja parisuhteiden keskeltä. Välillä hypätään Vietnamin sotaan (tiesinkö että Australiakin otti osaa siihen?) ja kuvataan väkivallan vaikutuksia ihmisiin.
Kummankaan miehen tarinassa ei hirveästi tapahdu mitään tai ainakaan fokus ei ole tapahtumissa. Wyldia kiinnostaa enemmän tunnelma ja tunteet, proosa keskittyy kuvailemaan ympäröivää luontoakin enemmän kuin varsinaisesti tapahtumia. Tämä oli jo tuttua Wyldin toisinkoisesta, erinomaisesta All the birds, singingista.
Lukuvaikeuksista huolimatta minulle jäi lopulta se tunne, että tämä on todella hyvin kirjoitettu kirja, jota en vain osannut aina lukea oikein. Irrallisen ja päämäärättömän tuntuiset elämäntarinat eivät loksahtaneet paikalleen ennen kuin asetin itseni tunnelmille alttiiksi, heittäydyin aaltojen vietäväksi. Kun pystyin uppoutumaan Australian syrjäseutujen aistimaisemaan ja väkivallan ja vaikenemisen keskellä kasvaneisiin miehiin, sain kirjasta paljon irti.
--
Keitä Evie Wyld muistuttaa? Mieleen tulee Sarah Hallin tuotanto. Hänen kirjoissaan on paljon samaa epämääräisen uhkaavaa ja painostavaa tunnelmaa kuin Wyldilla. Tai ehkä jollain tapaa Cormac McCarthy, joka kirjoittaa myös syrjäseutujen yksinäisistä miehistä, väkivallasta ja sen seurauksista, luonnosta ja eläimistä.
Mutta kun avasin kirjan illalla sohvannurkassa - paremmalla mielellä ja pidemmäksi aikaa kerrallaan - alkoi Wyldin proosa kolista. Romaanista avautui unenomaisia, tunnelmaan ja tunteeseen keskittyviä kohtauksia, kun asetin itseni niilel alttiiksi.
Wyldin romaani kertoo kahdesta miehestä, jotka yrittävät löytää paikkaansa Australian syrjäseuduilla ja erilaisten perhe- ja parisuhteiden keskeltä. Välillä hypätään Vietnamin sotaan (tiesinkö että Australiakin otti osaa siihen?) ja kuvataan väkivallan vaikutuksia ihmisiin.
Kummankaan miehen tarinassa ei hirveästi tapahdu mitään tai ainakaan fokus ei ole tapahtumissa. Wyldia kiinnostaa enemmän tunnelma ja tunteet, proosa keskittyy kuvailemaan ympäröivää luontoakin enemmän kuin varsinaisesti tapahtumia. Tämä oli jo tuttua Wyldin toisinkoisesta, erinomaisesta All the birds, singingista.
Lukuvaikeuksista huolimatta minulle jäi lopulta se tunne, että tämä on todella hyvin kirjoitettu kirja, jota en vain osannut aina lukea oikein. Irrallisen ja päämäärättömän tuntuiset elämäntarinat eivät loksahtaneet paikalleen ennen kuin asetin itseni tunnelmille alttiiksi, heittäydyin aaltojen vietäväksi. Kun pystyin uppoutumaan Australian syrjäseutujen aistimaisemaan ja väkivallan ja vaikenemisen keskellä kasvaneisiin miehiin, sain kirjasta paljon irti.
--
Keitä Evie Wyld muistuttaa? Mieleen tulee Sarah Hallin tuotanto. Hänen kirjoissaan on paljon samaa epämääräisen uhkaavaa ja painostavaa tunnelmaa kuin Wyldilla. Tai ehkä jollain tapaa Cormac McCarthy, joka kirjoittaa myös syrjäseutujen yksinäisistä miehistä, väkivallasta ja sen seurauksista, luonnosta ja eläimistä.
May 1, 2018
This novel, the choice for my book group this month, was an unexpected pleasure. Coming to it somewhat unprepared and as a book I probably would not have picked out for myself, I didn't have particular preconceptions/expectations, but what it turned out to be was a very well observed examination of families and men, social history and.. oh.. it was really quite sad throughout.
Set in Australia, the book mainly follows a son and father, their distance and their closeness, and how they came to be the people they were. It struck a really witty balance between beautifully described and observed small delicate points, and a rambling, bumbling colloquial Aussie male slang - the two meshed and not jarring. It reminded me favourably of 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' by Richard Flanagan, about which it shares several themes of loss and isolation. Though pretty miserable and unrelentingly worrying, I didn't mind this - I only feel it didn't merit a full five stars because at times the closely linked two main characters were difficult to distinguish and keep track of - possibly intended but certainly confusing on occasion.
Set in Australia, the book mainly follows a son and father, their distance and their closeness, and how they came to be the people they were. It struck a really witty balance between beautifully described and observed small delicate points, and a rambling, bumbling colloquial Aussie male slang - the two meshed and not jarring. It reminded me favourably of 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' by Richard Flanagan, about which it shares several themes of loss and isolation. Though pretty miserable and unrelentingly worrying, I didn't mind this - I only feel it didn't merit a full five stars because at times the closely linked two main characters were difficult to distinguish and keep track of - possibly intended but certainly confusing on occasion.
February 2, 2019
A challenging story, the storyline itself is challenging. War. Men fighting wars. Men from two generations being changed irrevocably by being soldiers. And what flows on from that of course is the families that become a part of the collateral damage of war. Onwards and onwards.
I am not a big fan of war and its pointlessness.
Is the spiral of damaged souls going to end with the soul searching if the current generation ? Who knows.
The book itself I found a bit slow to start but picked up intensity about a third of the way in. I did find it challenging to keep tabs of which generation the current chapter storyline about, and did have to often pop back a page or two to get my bearings. Perhaps that is a part of this storyline and book, the involvement in and flow on effects of war are pretty similar in their brutality and outcomes. Not sure on that.
I am left feeling a little bruised by this book. There is very little gentleness in it.
I am not a big fan of war and its pointlessness.
Is the spiral of damaged souls going to end with the soul searching if the current generation ? Who knows.
The book itself I found a bit slow to start but picked up intensity about a third of the way in. I did find it challenging to keep tabs of which generation the current chapter storyline about, and did have to often pop back a page or two to get my bearings. Perhaps that is a part of this storyline and book, the involvement in and flow on effects of war are pretty similar in their brutality and outcomes. Not sure on that.
I am left feeling a little bruised by this book. There is very little gentleness in it.
October 16, 2022
An ok from me. I bit circular and lacking in direction. A man escapes to a beach shack after escaping an abusive relationship and the story flits between his time trying to recreate his life in a small localized place and him reminiscing about his father who was tormented by his conscription to the Vietnam War and suffered at the hands of his war ravaged father. Descriptive and evocative language but the characters didn’t do it for me.
April 9, 2013
I really wanted to like this book. I don't know - I don't have the greatest track record with Australia-set books. I think they lose something for me, as Australian's probably the only English dialect that I have actual trouble with. But I loved this book's title. But it didn't translated over to the love of the book. I still liked it, the prose made sure of that (and was easy to handle to an Australia-ignorant like me), but I didn't love it.
The problem is the father-son relationship as depicted in the book. That's the crux basically, alternating chapters of the father and the son, the Vietnam war veteran and the general fuck-up trying to make a life in a shack, in different time periods. I understood that they're both screwed up individuals. But what exactly happened between Leon and Frank that their relationship deteriorated to that extent? We know from Frank that Leon neither abused him sexually, nor hit him. Leon slept around, but I don't think we're given any evidence that he was unfaithful to Frank's mother. Leon was in a crazy war, but all the memories Frank has of Leon when his mother was still alive are good. So, what snapped? What was so horrible about this father of his that Frank would hit his girlfriend and then deteriorate enough for her to leave him for having met Leon and wanting to mend their relationship? It's just not there, the motivation for the hatred Frank carries around. It makes him very hard to understand. But he's half the book, and frankly I liked his chapters more than I did Leon's as Frank's story had more interesting characters.
But it still bothers me that I wasn't following one character at all, and no amount of beautiful prose can stem that frustration. And the prose is beautiful. It evokes the place well. To a novice, Australia is fully present, so is Vietnam in part of Leon's chapters. She doesn't raise any new subjects, but what she does, she does so in a very forceful and authoritative voice. Her minor characters are quite good too - I loved Sal and her pet carrot and would have liked to see more of her. By contrast, the clarity that is missing with the central characters becomes even worse. Also, the ladies in the leading men's lives, the ones we're told are the main reasons why are men are what they are, remain in the shadows. They're hardly present, except as some background chatter, and that's a surprising thing to find in a woman author's work. And I'm not sure that's a brave thing to do - for me, it leaves the novel incomplete.
From my whining in the previous paragraphs, you'd think I would have hated the book more. It's surprising, but the book gripped me when I was reading it. It's only after I snapped it shut was I dissatisfied. Evie Wyld knows how to tell a story, and it is an accomplishment for a book which deals with unlikable characters doing mostly unlikable everyday things, with not much drama, no reconciliation or catharsis. 3 stars.
The problem is the father-son relationship as depicted in the book. That's the crux basically, alternating chapters of the father and the son, the Vietnam war veteran and the general fuck-up trying to make a life in a shack, in different time periods. I understood that they're both screwed up individuals. But what exactly happened between Leon and Frank that their relationship deteriorated to that extent? We know from Frank that Leon neither abused him sexually, nor hit him. Leon slept around, but I don't think we're given any evidence that he was unfaithful to Frank's mother. Leon was in a crazy war, but all the memories Frank has of Leon when his mother was still alive are good. So, what snapped? What was so horrible about this father of his that Frank would hit his girlfriend and then deteriorate enough for her to leave him for having met Leon and wanting to mend their relationship? It's just not there, the motivation for the hatred Frank carries around. It makes him very hard to understand. But he's half the book, and frankly I liked his chapters more than I did Leon's as Frank's story had more interesting characters.
But it still bothers me that I wasn't following one character at all, and no amount of beautiful prose can stem that frustration. And the prose is beautiful. It evokes the place well. To a novice, Australia is fully present, so is Vietnam in part of Leon's chapters. She doesn't raise any new subjects, but what she does, she does so in a very forceful and authoritative voice. Her minor characters are quite good too - I loved Sal and her pet carrot and would have liked to see more of her. By contrast, the clarity that is missing with the central characters becomes even worse. Also, the ladies in the leading men's lives, the ones we're told are the main reasons why are men are what they are, remain in the shadows. They're hardly present, except as some background chatter, and that's a surprising thing to find in a woman author's work. And I'm not sure that's a brave thing to do - for me, it leaves the novel incomplete.
From my whining in the previous paragraphs, you'd think I would have hated the book more. It's surprising, but the book gripped me when I was reading it. It's only after I snapped it shut was I dissatisfied. Evie Wyld knows how to tell a story, and it is an accomplishment for a book which deals with unlikable characters doing mostly unlikable everyday things, with not much drama, no reconciliation or catharsis. 3 stars.
December 2, 2010
It must have been towards then end of last year that I first spotted After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, cover turned out on the new books shelf in the library. Such an intriguing title. Such a beautiful cover. I had to pick it up and find out more. I was intrigued and yet I didn’t bring the book home. I wasn’t sure that it was the book for me.
But then I read so much praise for both book and author that I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. And so the next time it appeared on the shelves I picked it up and held on to it!
When I opened the pages and began to began to read, I was captivated, by rich and beautiful prose and by the quite extraordinary evocation of the stark and savage beauty of the Australian setting. And that drew me into the twin storylines that hadn’t really called to me.
When a troubled relationship finally breaks down Frank moves away, to the coast, to a shack once owned by his grandparents. He wants to put his violent past, his troubled relationships with his father and his girlfriend behind him. He wants to become a new person and build a better life in his new community. And maybe he can, but it is difficult to let go of the past.
A generation earlier Leon grows up in another small town. He works in the family business, his father’s cake shop which when his father is sent to fight in Korea he must take over until his father comes back. When his father does return he is a changed man and cannot pick up the threads of his old life, and Leon struggles to hold his family and the business together. Then he is conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War and he too finds that the experience of war changes him forever. But maybe he can build a new life, in a shack on the coast.
Two compelling stories, quiet and yet intense, are interwoven. At first they seem separate, but gradually the links become evident, and add a whole new layer.
And characterisation makes this sing. Two complex, flawed, emotionally scarred men come to life, with prose style and characters perfectly matched.
Descriptions too; the landscapes will stay with me as much as the characters.
Indeed all of the elements work together to make this a very accomplished debut novel.
It wasn’t a book that I could quite fall in love with. But I can appreciate its quality nonetheless.
But then I read so much praise for both book and author that I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. And so the next time it appeared on the shelves I picked it up and held on to it!
When I opened the pages and began to began to read, I was captivated, by rich and beautiful prose and by the quite extraordinary evocation of the stark and savage beauty of the Australian setting. And that drew me into the twin storylines that hadn’t really called to me.
When a troubled relationship finally breaks down Frank moves away, to the coast, to a shack once owned by his grandparents. He wants to put his violent past, his troubled relationships with his father and his girlfriend behind him. He wants to become a new person and build a better life in his new community. And maybe he can, but it is difficult to let go of the past.
A generation earlier Leon grows up in another small town. He works in the family business, his father’s cake shop which when his father is sent to fight in Korea he must take over until his father comes back. When his father does return he is a changed man and cannot pick up the threads of his old life, and Leon struggles to hold his family and the business together. Then he is conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War and he too finds that the experience of war changes him forever. But maybe he can build a new life, in a shack on the coast.
Two compelling stories, quiet and yet intense, are interwoven. At first they seem separate, but gradually the links become evident, and add a whole new layer.
And characterisation makes this sing. Two complex, flawed, emotionally scarred men come to life, with prose style and characters perfectly matched.
Descriptions too; the landscapes will stay with me as much as the characters.
Indeed all of the elements work together to make this a very accomplished debut novel.
It wasn’t a book that I could quite fall in love with. But I can appreciate its quality nonetheless.
June 9, 2010
I ran across an Advanced Reader's/Reviewer's Edition of this book for $1.00 outside of The Strand and was initially taken with the title. Thought, what could I lose? ...nothing. This debut novel was hauntingly stunning; an absolute pleasure to read. Wylde's got guts. She has command of character conflict, detail, pacing, and dialogue. She knows how to lure the reader in ( shockingly believable through male perspectives), grab him by the throat and hold on until she's ready to let go. She had me. I'll look for more of her work. While the book had it's weakish moments, and while it could have been a tad longer... knows how to tell a story, reminding me a bit of Cormac when he's at his best, and it's rare in contemporary fiction...so it was much appreciated. This is an entertaining story.
August 10, 2009
I can't believe a story this good and this well-written didn't make it to the Man Booker long list. Two apparently separate story lines gradually converge in a tough and gritty tale of the legacies of war in an Australian family. Leon's father never recovered from his Korean War experience, presaging Leon's own struggles after fighting in the Vietnam War. In an alternating story line that takes place in the very recent past, Frank attempts to find himself and start a new life in his grandparents' rustic cabin on the coast after breaking up with his girlfriend. Wyld does a remarkable job getting into the heads and beer mugs of her characters, presenting them with compassion and warts and making them totally believable. Great writing! Highly recommended.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : After the Fire, a Still Small Voice - Nevisande : Evie Wyld - ISBN : 307378462 - ISBN13 : 9780307378460 - Dar 304 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2009
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