Reviews

• Loved this book!

  I swallowed this book in giant,greedy gulps. Yes, it's not perfect, and yes the ending may annoy readers who like a more definitive conclusion, but I forgave it everything because I so loved the writing. The plot spans about five years and covers two stories that deal with a young woman named Jake. In the present time, she's a hermit-like sheep farmer battling someone, or something, who is violently killing off her sheep. The second plot line is a series of flashbacks that slowly move backwards in time and show us, little by little, why Jake is such a mess. But that description doesn't do justice to this unforgettable protagonist, highly engaging plot, and complicated, beautiful structure. After I was done, I found myself going back and rereading all of the flashbacks just to see the amazing way Wyld pieces them together. I also loved the way she depicts animals and Jake's relationship with them. There are moments of shearing sheep and birthing lambs where the stakes are so much higher than just the actions taking place, that it's as tense as any thriller I've ever read. There's also a scene where an ewe gets her throat cut and another of a kangaroo getting hit by a car that are almost unbearable to read, yet so well done they stand alone as set pieces. Great book!

• With a little bit of this and a little bit of that

  Every once in a while, a book comes along that is so good it makes you resent all the time spent reading inferior books. All The Birds, Singing is one such book. The novel comprises two stories. One is a woman running a farm on an un-named English island. Her sheep start to get attacked at night, and she gets the feeling that the perpetrator is not human... The other, frankly, more compelling story is of a young woman working on a remote sheep station in the Western Australian desert. The stories interlink, but never overlap. The English island story is told in a conventional forward narrative whilst the Australian narrative presents a series of episodes that work backwards in time. This might sound tricksy, but it isn't. It just reads and flows very naturally. The super strength of the novel is that whilst the description is tight and evocative, there are gaps between the chapters, lines between which so much can be read. The reader is invited to ask how on earth Jake, the lead female character in both stories, got from there to here (or from here to there in the backwards narrative). Relationships are ambiguous and might be clarified by a subsequent chapter, only to be left wide open again in the chapter afterwards. It is clear that Jake has a past, has secrets. Just enough of these is eventually revealed to make sense, but not enough to tie up all the loose ends. These loose ends will keep fraying and playing on the reader's mind, long after the final chapter. The Australian narrative is superb; it would happily stand up to the classics in portraying the loneliness, hardship and macho culture of Outback Australia. It is set in contemporary times but could almost have been written at any point in the last 80 years or more. Every sentence smacks of authenticity. The wildlife is right; the birds are right. Flawless. The English island is less well created. Its lack of grounding on any real place is telling. It doesn't know whether it is a small place where everyone knows everyone, or a large place with downs, a prison and a regular car ferry. Geographically, it also feels cast adrift, part home counties, part west country. Although there are clear attempts to compare and contrast between the island and the Australian Outback, it falls slightly flat because it is comparing something real to something imagined. Similarly with the people; Otto in Port Hedland feels real; Lloyd on the island feels imagined. Jake in WA is a real jillaroo whereas Jake the island farmer never quite convinces. Nevertheless, Evie Wyld does create a sense of menace on her island and, perhaps, a sense of poetic justice. Perhaps the island is supposed to be imagined. That's the thing, the novel just leaves the reader asking so many questions. All in all, this is a pretty astonishing book that has deservedly won Australia's Miles Franklin Prize in a particularly competitive year. Well done Evie Wyld.

• A book to challenge your perceptions

  I downloaded this book, as it was last month's choice for our Kindle book club. We were all keen to read this as it had received the Miles Franklin award. I found it confusing and a bit hard to get into initially with the two time frames and two different locations, compounded by the fact that the present day events were narrated in the past and the past events were narrated in the present tense. The protagonist is a female with a male name, which also became axiomatic. However, once I adjusted to the style, I did become absorbed into the story, and particularly the mystery about the protagonist's dreadful scars on her back, and what seemed to be a self-destructive past that left her reclusive and almost robotic in her emotions. The book became like a jigsaw, and gradually more and more of the pieces fell into place. By the end, I was totally immersed in the tortured world and felt there was a glimpse of optimism at the end of the book. Interestingly, our book club had very mixed responses - some loved it, some were irritated by it and some did not finish and felt offended by some of the more graphic scenes. Overall, it is a worthy, thought-provoking read with many fine literary features, though I do not think it deserved the Miles Franklin award.

• One for book club to chew over ...

  Bought this as a present for my wife (remote island, birds singing, feelgood read?). Should have reviews! Just read it myself and found it a rivetting story. Atmospheric description of the Australian outback and the mystery of present remote British island, tethered to a suspenseful advancement of the present with backwards unfurling of the past, kept me gripped. Main characters were intriguing and well drawn despite the concise prose. The ending was sudden, but left room for conjecture, plenty to discuss for a book club. Not a feelgood story but overall a satisfying read.

• Well written

  I only rated this book 3 stars as it was confusing. It has won a prestigious literary award so I can hardly criticise but the two arcs of the story don't make sense. Why was the narrators early life in Australia in illogical order. It took several chapters to realise that the English narrator was the same person. Description of place evoked the times and was beautifully written but my reaction on finishing was wondering what the point of the story was all about.

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