Catherine Mckinnon

Seven years after the Miles Franklin Award shortlisted Storyland, author Catherine McKinnon has published a remarkable new novel, To Sing of War. I really liked and admired Storyland (see here) so I didn't hesitate.

As you will know if you've been following rel="nofollow" target="_top">my adventures with Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend by Donna Coates, you will know that I am fascinated by Australia's preoccupation with war fiction, and have even set up a page in the top menu to list the novels I know about. To Sing of War will join the long list of WW2 novels, but is one of the few to be set in the Pacific War, and Papua New Guinea in particular. (The Offspring's paternal grandfather spent his war in PNG, though he never spoke about it, so this has added interest for me.)

While Storyland ranged across time to connect Australia's past, present and future, To Sing of War is multi-layered in its settings. This is from the book description:

December 1944: In New Guinea, a young Australian nurse, Lotte Wyld, chances upon her first love, Virgil Nicholson, there to fight the Japanese and keen to prove his worth as a man. Against the backdrop of a hard-fought jungle campaign, the two negotiate their troubled past. Meanwhile, in Los Alamos, young physicists Miriam Carver and Fred Johnson join Robert Oppenheimer and a team of brilliant scientists in a collective dream to build a weapon that will stop all war, with Oppenheimer also juggling the competing demands of the American military and his clever wife, Kitty. Far away, on the sacred island of Miyajima, Hiroko Narushima helps her husband's grandmother run a ryokan, however, when one of her daughters encounters danger, Hiroko must act to ensure her family's safety.

Though the novel takes a little time to come together, the characterisation carries it through. Lotte is a feisty young woman working with a courageous team of nurses close to the action and though she's dedicated to her job she is also burdened by a misunderstanding with Virgil that dates back to when they were in Australia. Exactly what happened isn't revealed immediately, but there are brief letters that cross their paths in PNG. Neither knows whether their attraction is mutual, and the haphazard nature of jungle warfare means that Virgil is not only constantly at risk, but that Lotte is only too well aware that she may never know his fate.

This tentative relationship is offset by the Los Alamos strand of the novel, which I found resonant with images from the recent film Oppenheimer.

The closed and claustrophobic world of this secret research station is brilliantly conveyed: Robert Oppenheimer's wife Kitty chafes at the restricted lifestyle, reminding me that the architects of the facility understood that scientists would only stay the course in a long project if their wives and families were also at the base. Nobody gave any thought to how the women might cope with being away from their families and friends, with nothing much to do.

Alongside this thread is the moral question that has plagued the world ever since: can a weapon of mass destruction prevent future wars, and should its secrets be shared?

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/05/27/to-sing-of-war-2024-by-catherine-mckinnon/… (altro)

Storyland is a series of tales set in the Illawarra region of New South Wales spanning a period from 1796 to 2717. The book begins with the true story of Will Martin, a cabin boy who travelled with Bass and Flinders from Sydney Cove, seeking to confirm a rumour of a navigable river to the south of the colony. They overshoot their mark and end up near a lagoon now known as Lake Illawarra, where they have a nervous encounter with the native people.

McKinnon also tells the stories of: Seth Hawker, a desperate ticket-of-leave man; Lola, a young girl running a dairy with her mixed-race relatives at the turn of the century; Bel, a late-90s girl who blunders into a violent situation; and Nada, whose story is set in a dystopian future where climate change has wrought a terrible impact.

The stories also tell the tale of the landscape over those centuries of time, from Will's first encounter, through the encroachment of agriculture and industry, to a time where the landscape itself is rent asunder by the results of that encroachment.

This is a very artfully constructed book. McKinnon takes us forward through time from Will's expedition to the story of Nada, and then backwards again. The backward journey gives the resolution of the earlier parts and reveals small details about how these people and places are all subtly connected. Each chapter follows seamlessly from the previous one within a sentence and, cleverly, also follows from its earlier part in the same way.

This book attempts to tell a grand sweeping story of Australia and its people from first contact times into the far future. It's an ambitious novel that achieves its aims very successfully.… (altro)

On the importance of story

The 'novel' - if novel it be - ranges across time, from 1796 and early European intrusion/exploration of Australia through 1822, 1900, 1998 & into the future. However, and this is key - it is essentially anchored in place. The place is the Illawarra area, south of Sydney, Australia.
Thus the narrative is not limited by the constraint of a human lifespan. That is its point, as identified in its title: STORYLAND. This unconstrained-by-singular-time novel does not suffer for a lack of traditional characterisation, plotting, storyline, style & voice. It is a text and land populated with story. With stories.
The stories of these times and place speak with distinctive voices to the manner in which story creates and recreates the human; the stories, furthermore, emphasize that what is human cannot be divorced from the land, from country. That the stories in this text speak of murder, fear, misunderstanding, & an uncertain relationship of the European with this 'new' land, add thematic weight to the reader’s appreciation of Australia’s colonial history. Of this land.
The prose can be lushly appreciative of the bush. Of setting. It speaks to natural icons: storm, fig trees, bird, water, drought. The artificial is sometimes at war with the natural; boat against current, bridge against flood, house versus cave. These conflicts are mirrored in human relationships: Indian against European, woman against man, childish restrictions against Adult restriction.

So I liked it. A lot. Why then 4, not 5 stars?
There were links, connections I needed made clearer. The stories across time did not mesh for me as well as I wanted - this, of course, may be down to a sometimes distracted reading. A reader who missed things. I need, I know, to read this book again. To look for cohesions I suspect I've missed.
And did I want – every now and then - more concrete resolutions? Who does the murder? Why? What of that relic axe; from whence did it come? How are our disparate narrators related across times?
Perhaps I am asking for things I really do not need.… (altro)