We Were Not Men by Campbell Mattinson

Fourth Estate, $32.99 pb, 342 pp

Campbell Mattinson’s novel, We Were Not Men, is far from the great heights of To Kill a Mockingbird, but it is one of the more interesting first novels I have read in ages, partly because Mattinson has confronted the challenges outlined above. Twins Jon and Eden Hardacre are just nine years old when they are thrust into a brutal adult world thanks to a shocking accident that kills their parents. This event, narrated by Jon in painful detail early on in the novel, establishes the raw traumatic base upon which the rest of their story unfolds. Both are swimmers, having been taught by their mother. After recovering from the accident, they begin training in an obsessive way, one made possible by the fact that there is a creek on the property owned by their grandmother.

The novel exposes the extent of the boys’ loss as well as their particular ways of coping with grief, their intimate relationship as twins, and the therapeutic power of swimming. It proceeds at a heightened emotional pace that is rarely relaxed. Sometimes I wished the author had changed gear now and then instead of hurtling along in a way that can be tiring. Sometimes I wished he had remembered that kids are just kids who don’t always need to reflect deeply and meaningfully, but are occasionally – perhaps often – content just to be. On the other hand, suffering has propelled these boys fast into maturity, and they are burdened with a great deal. The boys verbally tiptoe around each other and their eccentric grandmother Bobbie, now their carer. If the carefully constructed and sometimes coded dialogue is occasionally strained, that is relieved by the original and lyrical tone of the narration overall.

A now mostly lost world of suburban innocence and secrets is explored, while the natural world is cherished for its restorative power. Mattinson also digs deeply into emotional terrain, and evokes the trauma and heartache of these boys who fiercely cherish each other at the same time as being swimming rivals. The acknowledgments explain that Mattinson has spent thirty years writing this book, and it shows: every sentence has been lovingly crafted. Both Jon (the narrator) and Eden are strong characters, but it is Bobbie who steals the show with her wry, offbeat conversation, her singular approach to child-rearing, her constant challenges to the boys, and her own deep wounds from losing her beloved husband and soulmate. This is definitely a novel for adults.

The Cookbook of Common Prayer by Francesca Haig

Allen & Unwin, $27.99 pb, 425 pp

The child’s point of view is also utilised in Francesca Haig’s The Cookbook of Common Prayer, as part of an ensemble of voices. Eleven-year-old Teddy, one of the four principal narrators, delivers a story of grief, loss, and secrets set in Tasmania and England. The others are his parents, Gabe and Gill, and his sister Sylvie, a teenage victim of anorexia nervosa who has been in hospital for most of the past three years. A silent but strong presence is the eldest child, Dougie, who died in a caving (or ‘potholing’) accident while on a gap year in England, a fact that is revealed early. Fearing that news of Dougie’s death will shock fragile Sylvie, the parents decide that they must conceal it from her. They create a story maintaining that Dougie has only broken his leg, and has set off on a European holiday with his father, who has remained overseas for the inquest. To top it all off, Gill continues to write letters to Sylvie from ‘Dougie’ – real letters, of course, not emails, because in her locked ward there is no internet or phone connection.

What could possibly go wrong? They don’t even consider when or how they will have to undo their elaborate fiction, let alone what their surviving children will make of this bizarre example of parenting. Wobbly at best, this premise becomes less convincing when Teddy is required to hide the truth from Sylvie (despite the fact that he visits her daily after school), but also from their dementia-suffering grandfather. Gill and Gabe are no slouches intellectually, but they seem not to have thought through all the consequences, though in his defence Gabe is initially inclined to challenge his wife.

The first half of the novel teeters on this edge of implausibility, but as the story developed I found myself keen to see how the disasters in this family would escalate – thankfully, not in any way that could be anticipated. Gabe and Gill’s voices are long-winded and not clearly enough delineated, and Teddy is far more capable and resourceful than his childish voice permits, but the novel is ultimately redeemed by Sylvie. She alone says little but speaks volumes. And when she reveals what she knows, and why she’s been silently trying to make herself disappear for so long, it only proves what her doctor has been trying to tell Gill for months: that Sylvie is resilient and astute.

Small Joys of Real Life by Allee Richards

Hachette, $32.99 pb, 295 pp)

Wild improbabilities also feature at the start of Allee Richards’s first novel, Small Joys of Real Life: meeting a man with whom you instantly fall in love; having sex just once, before he dies; discovering you are pregnant, then deciding to keep the baby. But all this is carried off with great flair thanks to the confident voice of the narrator, Eva, and to the tight story that is maintained despite the limited scope and settings of the action. Having given up her acting career for no good reason and alienated her agent, Eva now settles into the inevitable, binging on the television show Friends during her months of pregnancy. That series is a touchstone for the whole novel: friendships are stretched to the limits with Eva’s two main friends, Annie and Sarah, coping with her impulses and secrets in different ways, but ultimately demonstrating a fierce loyalty.

This is a novel of millennial angst set in inner-city Melbourne, and there is a lot of low-key action – going out to bars and parties, visiting friends, bitching with friends, not talking to your mother. But the tight structure, month by month through Eva’s pregnancy, propels the story along without being predictable. Most unexpectedly, for her and us, Eva is a horny pregnant woman, frankly confronting and meeting her body’s desires without apology. It’s also refreshing to read a novel that embraces the large joys of life (having a baby) and the small ones (sharing cups of tea) without a skerrick of sentimentality. You probably would not want to binge on this sort of novel, but it represents quality escapism for the times.