Thirteen year old Justine lives with her grandfather on a small block near the Murray River. Her favourite hideaway is The Choke, a narrow stretch of the river where flood waters can build up until the banks burst. She is nearly friendless and has undiagnosed learning difficulties, so her refuge at The Choke is a great comfort to her.

Justine is occasionally visited by her ne'er-do-well father who spends most of his time away from home involved in criminal activity. Her Pop is convinced that her father went bad when his mother died; Pop gets the blame, but it's not clear why.

On a visit home, Justine's father commits a crime and the consequences are visited upon Justine. Her life is in tatters, she is alone and exploited, before she makes a stand.

This is another excellent outing from Sofie Laguna. Justine is a highly empathetic protagonist, and her relationship with the disabled Michael is beautifully handled. About my only reservation with this book is that there are a few ends left dangling that I would have preferred be clarified. ( )

In 2017, the Miles Franklin Winner from 2015 Sofie Laguna released The Choke to critical acclaim. Set in a rural area on the Murray River, it's a bleak literary novel narrated by a 10 year old protagonist Justine.

Justine lives with her pop, a WWII veteran suffering the trauma of working on the Burma railway and barely surviving the war. Her father is mostly absent and her mother abandoned Justine when she was just 3 years old.

I enjoyed elements at the beginning of the book, the youthful exuberance of playing cubbies with her half brothers and swimming in the Murray River. The Australian landscape really comes alive on the page.

However there's no doubting Justine is from a very poor background, unable to read with what appears to be undiagnosed dyslexia (I could be wrong) and no-one to teach her about puberty.

Justine's father is a criminal and there is a gloomy and heavy feeling to the entire novel. Justine's prospects lift when she makes a new friend, and this was my favourite part of the book. Justine's friendship with Michael was magic and I'd have been far happier if the story had ended there. However it was somewhat foolish to think Justine could have a happy ending and somehow escape the poverty cycle.

The Choke moves on a few years and approaches a defining moment in Justine's life. It's heartbreaking, depressing and I found myself thinking this just might belong in the fabled genre of misery lit. Justine's future prospects are grim and the sense of helplessness was overwhelming.

Most readers have seen a searing truth in Justine's story and adore this book. The Choke was nominated for a swag of awards and Australian literature lovers obviously revere it. Unfortunately it didn't work for me. I was too depressed and drained of empathy to enjoy the book and was glad to put this story of childhood neglect, sexual abuse, criminality and poverty behind me.

* Copy courtesy of Allen & Unwin * ( )

This was a tough book to read. Not because there was anything wrong with the writing - quite the opposite. It was a tough story told so well I couldn't help but engage with it. It's a story about toxic men ruling a world of poverty in an Australian rural community. There are a few good people, but we can see that it is inevitable that their good intentions are thwarted. Although the ending is somewhat hopeful, we know that protagonist Justine Lee (10 years old at the start of the novel) is destined to live a very hard and mostly miserable life. There seems little hope that she, and others like her, will ever break out of the cycle of desperation and perennially shattered dreams. A very depressing outlook, but one whose veracity is convincingly argued. ( )

Justine Lee is a little girl surrounded by males. Justine's mother abandoned the family many years ago, and her father Ray is in and out of his children's lives, leaving the main responsibility for raising Justine and her brothers to their grandfather. When Ray is around his criminal involvement is something that Justine, in particular, struggles with. She retreats to her sanctuary in The Choke on the Murray River to hide from the world, and seeks solace in the company of her Pop's chooks. In both places there's no judgement, no demands and no brutality.

Set in two distinct blocks, THE CHOKE starts out around 1971, when Justine is a 10 year old girl, and school is a turbulent place, except when it comes to her best friend - a disabled boy whose parents are supportive of both kids, a friendship without demands, and mutually supportive. Moving three years into the future, still reeling from events triggered by her father, 13 year old Justine is a vulnerable kid, naive and struggling with too many bad things happening to one little girl.

THE CHOKE isn't easy reading. Laguna has created a magnificent character in Justine Lee. Her voice is clear and utterly convincing. So much so that the sense of dread and fear over her ultimate fate is difficult to deal with. She's also created a sympathetic and very understandable man in Pops - somebody struggling with PTSD and his own demons, trying to do his best by his young granddaughter. His desire to keep her close to family, to keep her out of care is beautifully contrasted with the external viewpoint, where the options might appear more clear-cut. Against these two ultimately sympathetic characters, there's father Ray, a thoroughly noxious creature, absent aunts, cousins and family connections.

Supporting all of these characters is a strong sense of place - many kids growing up in country areas will know too well the "special places" that we find. The hidey-holes, the sanctuaries carved out in quiet corners, away from the adult world, or even siblings, hidden, private and safe. The passage of seasons, time, the impact of weather patterns, the animals, birds, flowers and natural features of those areas are often our consolation and our teachers, and Laguna gets that pitch perfect in this novel.

There's much in this book that's confronting and discomforting, and it's not straight forward reading, but it's worthwhile reading, digging into 1970's Australian rural life, dysfunctional families, and adult behaviour that has lasting consequences.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/choke-sofie-laguna ( )

4.5* ( )