charlotte wood – Aussie Reviews

The Natural Way of Things, by Charlotte Wood

She hears her own thick voice deep inside her ears when she says, ‘I need to know where I am.’ The man stands there, tall and narrow, hand still on the doorknob, surprised. He says, almost in sympathy, ‘Oh, sweetie. You need to know what you are.’

Verla and Yolanda are among ten young women who wake up from a drugged sleep not knowing where they are or why they are there. But as the day unfolds, so too does their terrible situation become clearer. They are in a prison unlike no other: in abandoned buildings on an unknown remote piece of land, surrounded by electrified fences. There is no escape, and their jailers are two men with no compassion and not much idea what they are doing. Their heads shaved, their clothes taken away and replaced with ugly, itchy uniforms, the women are to perform hard labour in a regime which is supposedly intended to reform them. Their crime? Each woman has been part of a sexual scandal with a powerful man – though these relationships were, for the most, not consensual.

The Natural Way of Things is an uncomfortable book, dealing with often shocking events playing out as part of a terrible, unfathomable injustice. But it is this discomfort which makes the book so brilliant. The readers is taken on an emotional journey through a raft of emotions including despair, denial, anger, hope and more. The characters, particularly Verla and Yolanda, are intriguing, and their developing relationships fascinating.

Exploring misogyny, corporate control, this dystopian novel is a must read for women and for men.

The Natural Way of Things
Allen & Unwin, 2015
ISBN 9781760111236

Love & Hunger: Thoughts on the Gift of Food, by Charlotte Wood

I began really learning to cook in my mid-twenties, at about the same time as I began really learning to write. I have only recently wondered if there is a link between these two things, other than the circumstances in which I found myself: an idle university student in possession of time for dawdling, some vague creative urges and new friends who inspired me with their own creativity and skill with a pen or a frying pan.

Charlotte Wood’s fiction offerings, including Animal People (2011) and The Children (2007) have attracted critical acclaim, but she is also a successful food writer, with her own blog and numerous magazine features including Gourmet Traveller and Good Weekend. In Love and Hunger Wood shares her love of food in an offering which is part memoir, part recipe book, exploring the shared nature of cooking and eating. With section focussing on learning to cook, practical tips for cooking, philosophical observations about food, and comfort cooking. There are over 75 recipes and, most importantly, a real celebration of the communal, loving nature of food and cooking.

Even for those who are not avid cooks, this is a book which makes the reader want to spend time in the kitchen, creating and sharing and simply enjoying the pleasures of good food. At the same time, the quality of the writing is deeply satisfying, bringing together Woods’ two much-loved art forms in a satisfying whole.

Love and Hunger: Thoughts on the Gift of Food, by Charlotte Wood
Allen & Unwin, 2012
ISBN 9781742377766

This book is available from good bookstores or online from Fishpond.

Animal People, by Charlotte Wood

Stephen has a fairly mundane existence. He lives alone, works in a cafe at the zoo, and has few friends. The only shining light in his life seems to be his girlfriend Fiona and her two little girls, a fact that will surprise the reader initially, because Stephen is planning to break up with Fiona at the end of the day. First, though, he must get through the day, a day which promises to be anything but ordinary.

He could not find a single thing more to say. I just want to be free. He could not say those stupid words. They had already withered in his mind, turned to dust. He did not even know, he marvelled now, what the hell those words had meant.

From having his bum nosed by the next door neighbour’s dog, to annoyingly inane conversations with his mother about the television she insists she ins’t buying, Stephen’s day meanders through a series of misfortunes. On the way to work he hits a woman in his car – then discovers she is a drug addict who refuses t go to hospital. At work he is forced to attend a bizarre team-building exercise, and after work he attends a party where it seems everyone, even the little birthday girl, despises him. Throughout all this Stephen is already mourning the loss of Fiona, who he clearly still adores, and worrying about how he will break up with her. A lot to happen in one day – yet, as I’ve already said, the plot meanders. there is no rush, no sense of this being a lot to fit into one day, though the reader feels the sense of impending doom as each new thing goes wrong in Stephen’s life, and wonders just when he’ll reach snapping point.

Animal People is a heart wrenching read. Stephen is a flawed, inept character, and it is hard to know just why he is so likable, yet by the end of the book the reader’s sympathies are definitely with him, to the point of anguish as it reaches its conclusion. He is also a character who stays with you after those final pages, wondering what happens next. The other characters in the book – both minor and major – are deftly drawn, with small details to draw them quickly in the reader’s mind, even if they don’t stay long in the story’s path. The mad man who sist next to Stephen on the bus, the possibly lesbian ladies who live next door, the paramedic moonlighting as a party fairy to help out her daughter, all come alive.

Animal People is a sequel of sorts to Wood‘s earlier novel The Children, but stands independently, though readers will find themselves wanting to read the former.

Brilliant.

Animal People, by Charlotte Wood
Allen & Unwin, 2011
ISBN 9781742376851

This book can be purchased in good bookstores, or online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

The Children, by Charlotte Wood

You bring your children up to escape sorrow. You spend your best years trying to stop them witnessing it on television, in you, in your neighbours’ faces. Then you realise, slowly, that they must steer their own way through life’s cruelties.

When their father falls off the roof and lies critically injured in hospital, Mandy, Stephen and Cathy come home for the first time in years. Like any family, there are rivalries and hurts between the three, which must be confronted as they sit at their father’s bedside and try to support their mother. Mandy has raced back from Baghdad where, as a foreign correspondent, she deals with death on a daily basis. Cathy, her sister has joined her on the trip down, driven by Mandy’s husband Chris. And Stephen, the prodigal, has eventually arrived unannounced to join the rest.

As Geoff lies dying, the three alternately comfort and confront, dealing with past and present hurts. Margaret, their mother, must also confront her own fears and insecurities – about lost chances and her track record as mother and wife. But someone else is involved, too. A stranger who no one remembers. Tony is a wardsman at the hospital, but is also a figure from Mandy’s past, determined to become part of her current life. His presence is unwanted, and dangerous.

The Children is an insightful novel, looking at family relationships and the effects of death and illness on these connections, as well as on the impact that being exposed to violence can have on an individual. Moving through the long and emotional days of the family’s bedside vigil, the story offers the multiple viewpoints of the different players, so that the reader is drawn into the differing perspectives of the family members and comes to care about what happens to them.

This is an absorbing read.

The Children, by Charlotte Wood
Allen & Unwin, 2007

This book can be purchased from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.