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Flames
A young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his twenty-three-year-old sister, Charlotte—who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire.
The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle.
Flames sings out with joy and sadness. Utterly original in conception, spellbinding in its descriptions of nature and its celebration of the power of language, it announces the arrival of a thrilling new voice in contemporary fiction.
The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle.
Flames sings out with joy and sadness. Utterly original in conception, spellbinding in its descriptions of nature and its celebration of the power of language, it announces the arrival of a thrilling new voice in contemporary fiction.
226 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2018
226 people are currently reading
6159 people want to read
About the author
Robbie Arnott
11 books625 followersRobbie Arnott was born in Launceston in 1989. His writing has appeared in Island, the Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings and the 2017 anthology Seven Stories. He won the 2015 Tasmanian Young Writers’ Fellowship and the 2014 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers. Robbie lives in Hobart and is an advertising copywriter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 629 reviews
July 3, 2024
The book is thick with magic right from the start…
Flames is a novel consisting of the interlocked stories written in different styles: Salt reads like a spoof of The Old Man and the Sea, Fur is an epistolary farce, Ice is a travesty of hardboiled fiction…
Feather is a weird horror tale in the form of a personal journal and, at last, Coal is a story of the fire spirit…
A wee bit of magic is hidden in any ordinary life…
Our mother returned to us two days after we spread her ashes over Notley Fern Gorge. She was definitely our mother – but, at the same time, she was not our mother at all. Since her dispersal among the fronds of Notley, she had changed. Now her skin was carpeted by spongy, verdant moss and thin tendrils of common filmy fern. Six large fronds of tree fern had sprouted from her back and extended past her waist in a layered peacock tail of vegetation. And her hair had been replaced by cascading fronds of lawn-coloured maidenhair – perhaps the most delicate fern of all.
Flames is a novel consisting of the interlocked stories written in different styles: Salt reads like a spoof of The Old Man and the Sea, Fur is an epistolary farce, Ice is a travesty of hardboiled fiction…
Sure, the whole reincarnation thing was a bit off-script, but I’d seen stranger things happen to stranger people – blackmailers who’d stolen souls with high-powered cameras; thieves who’d sold their shadows to puppeteers; adulterers who’d swapped faces with gargoyles. You name it, I’d seen it.
Feather is a weird horror tale in the form of a personal journal and, at last, Coal is a story of the fire spirit…
But what about him: what did he care for? What part of the world had thrown hooks into his soul? The answer, he had learned early in his life, lay in the hands that had clashed two stones together to create him. It was people, always people; only people that he really cared for. He had helped them cook, create, shape and heat themselves, and had come to think of them as not so much a family but as part of himself.
A wee bit of magic is hidden in any ordinary life…
June 29, 2020
"Everything changes, nothing perishes."
—Ovid, Metamorphoses
What a great start to a book! A dead Tasmanian mother returns to her family two days after they'd spread her ashes, and no-one bats an eyelid. This phenomenon isn't unusual within the McAllister clan, for a procession of deceased relatives routinely reappear, albeit amalgamated into the flora, fauna and flotsam of the locale in which they were scattered.
Yes! Yes! YES! I was seduced by Robbie Arnott before he'd even bought me flowers. This is an earth, wind and fire kind of book and I was up and ready to groove tonight!
For some strange reason, the mythical, folklorish inception of this story put me in mind of the nymph, Daphne, turning herself into a tree so she could evade the lustful advances of Apollo. I love shapeshifters.
Magical realism, if done well, is my favourite genre and Arnott's avant-garde storytelling is backed up with picturesque descriptions of the wild Tasmanian landscape: glistening green gorges, thistle fields, hateful gorse, mudflats and reedy wetlands; whale spray rising from the ocean, beneath a clotted sky.
This, my fellow bookaneers, is an author whose imagination outshines most others'.
Now, this doesn't mean that I was totally won over…
The story takes too many routes and becomes lost in the Forest of Fabulism that Arnott has planted. Not only that - why, oh why was the dialogue italicised? And there weren't any blimmin' speech marks either (one of my pet peeves). This ill-considered modus operandi frustrated me from start to finish. I felt as if I was bearing witness to a coven of superhumans who could all communicate telepathically with each other.
The good news is that Arnott's inventive imagery and extravagant storytelling continued to delight me throughout. He conjures up a wealth of extraordinary characters: salt-rinsed fishermen, census-friendly families (now that is a genius line), a flinty, androgynous kickass female detective and the world's finest coffin maker (who was a hoot!). The author even presents us with a Moby Dick-style trope involving a wombat farmer's maniacal quest to kill a malevolent cormorant.
The biggest compliment I can give Robbie Arnott is that his spellbinding book is like nothing I've ever read.
And that, dear reader, is a very fine achievement!
My thanks to wonderful Collin for his solid recommendation! Read his review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
—Ovid, Metamorphoses
What a great start to a book! A dead Tasmanian mother returns to her family two days after they'd spread her ashes, and no-one bats an eyelid. This phenomenon isn't unusual within the McAllister clan, for a procession of deceased relatives routinely reappear, albeit amalgamated into the flora, fauna and flotsam of the locale in which they were scattered.
Yes! Yes! YES! I was seduced by Robbie Arnott before he'd even bought me flowers. This is an earth, wind and fire kind of book and I was up and ready to groove tonight!
For some strange reason, the mythical, folklorish inception of this story put me in mind of the nymph, Daphne, turning herself into a tree so she could evade the lustful advances of Apollo. I love shapeshifters.
Magical realism, if done well, is my favourite genre and Arnott's avant-garde storytelling is backed up with picturesque descriptions of the wild Tasmanian landscape: glistening green gorges, thistle fields, hateful gorse, mudflats and reedy wetlands; whale spray rising from the ocean, beneath a clotted sky.
This, my fellow bookaneers, is an author whose imagination outshines most others'.
Now, this doesn't mean that I was totally won over…
The story takes too many routes and becomes lost in the Forest of Fabulism that Arnott has planted. Not only that - why, oh why was the dialogue italicised? And there weren't any blimmin' speech marks either (one of my pet peeves). This ill-considered modus operandi frustrated me from start to finish. I felt as if I was bearing witness to a coven of superhumans who could all communicate telepathically with each other.
The good news is that Arnott's inventive imagery and extravagant storytelling continued to delight me throughout. He conjures up a wealth of extraordinary characters: salt-rinsed fishermen, census-friendly families (now that is a genius line), a flinty, androgynous kickass female detective and the world's finest coffin maker (who was a hoot!). The author even presents us with a Moby Dick-style trope involving a wombat farmer's maniacal quest to kill a malevolent cormorant.
The biggest compliment I can give Robbie Arnott is that his spellbinding book is like nothing I've ever read.
And that, dear reader, is a very fine achievement!
My thanks to wonderful Collin for his solid recommendation! Read his review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
July 14, 2018
Well, this was wonderful. Lots of magical realism, but done right. It's not cute or twee but elemental and a bit fearsome.
The book plays with different styles in the first half, and while these are all well-executed, a couple of comedic sections did 'break the spell' a bit. The second half is more consistent in tone, and as a result feels more powerful.
In Flames Robbie Arnott has invented his own mythology which is wholly original and yet also feels timeless and endemic to Tasmania. Great stuff.
The book plays with different styles in the first half, and while these are all well-executed, a couple of comedic sections did 'break the spell' a bit. The second half is more consistent in tone, and as a result feels more powerful.
In Flames Robbie Arnott has invented his own mythology which is wholly original and yet also feels timeless and endemic to Tasmania. Great stuff.
January 24, 2020
2020 UPDATE this book is nominated for the International DUBLIN Literary Award! Best of luck, Author Arnott!
Sleep first, then review. 0200 is no time to be coherent.
***
I have words, as the saying goes; lots of them. Here are a few.
This lovely debut novel from a small-yet-mighty Australian publishing house was a delight to me from the moment I met Karl and his seal. Karl fishes off the northern coast of Tasmania, that deep-southern island state of Australia, the last significant spot of land between Antarctica and the world. His seal, like Lyra's daemon in His Dark Materials, is connected to Karl's very essence and forms a large part of Karl's self—both image and awareness. Their "Oneblood tuna" prey, the giant and preternaturally perfect piscine predators found only in the Bass Strait (this is never stated but is implicit in the constant Japanese tuna-buyers' presence), bring in huge amounts of money from sushi-mad Japanese consumers through their local Tasmanian agents. Karl supports his family, his seal included, on the proceeds of their hunts. His bond with his seal is, however, the source of his undoing. His seal, being but a seal, is not immortal and falls to a hungry orca before Karl's appalled and helpless eyes and ears:
There is no magical cure here. Not even for the cruel soulkiller PTSD.
Sleep first, then review. 0200 is no time to be coherent.
***
I have words, as the saying goes; lots of them. Here are a few.
This lovely debut novel from a small-yet-mighty Australian publishing house was a delight to me from the moment I met Karl and his seal. Karl fishes off the northern coast of Tasmania, that deep-southern island state of Australia, the last significant spot of land between Antarctica and the world. His seal, like Lyra's daemon in His Dark Materials, is connected to Karl's very essence and forms a large part of Karl's self—both image and awareness. Their "Oneblood tuna" prey, the giant and preternaturally perfect piscine predators found only in the Bass Strait (this is never stated but is implicit in the constant Japanese tuna-buyers' presence), bring in huge amounts of money from sushi-mad Japanese consumers through their local Tasmanian agents. Karl supports his family, his seal included, on the proceeds of their hunts. His bond with his seal is, however, the source of his undoing. His seal, being but a seal, is not immortal and falls to a hungry orca before Karl's appalled and helpless eyes and ears:
Karl tried to forget that clicking sound. But it was lodged in a hole between his ears, a backdrop to his days that he feared and hated but could not escape. He was reminded of it constantly: when a light switch was flicked, when Louise clicked her fingers, when his leaping daughters clicked their heels, when Sharon at the fish-and-chip shop clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she waited for the oil in the deep fryer to heat up.
There is no magical cure here. Not even for the cruel soulkiller PTSD.
July 10, 2023
Now shortlisted for the 2019 Guardian Not The Booker prize.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Richard Flanagan for this Tasmanian Fusion of Fantasy, Folklore, Flora and Fauna.
The first chapter introduces us to the McAllister family – whose woman folk are cremated after death, but then are briefly resurrected their bodies somehow fused with the nature of the site where their ashes were scattered. After the death of his mother, who returned as a fern before self-immolating outside the house of his long estranged father, Levi becomes convinced that his sister Charlotte cannot move on from her death and so resolves to commission a coffin for her as a sign that he will not allow her to be cremated – something which causes her to flee to the South of the Island.
The second chapter introduces us to Karl – one of the famed sea-based hunters of the Island who form a lifelong bond with a seal pup as youths, later forming a deadly partnership which at its peak enables them to hunt down the daunting and deadly Oneblood Tuna.
Each chapter is named after an element (Ash, Salt, Fur, Iron etc), each largely from a different point of view character (Levi, his sister and father, Karl’s daughter, the coffin maker that Levi commissions, the detective he hires to trace Charlotte, the manger of a Wombat farm where the two girls meet, the local park ranger, a number of nature Gods including the Esk God – a water rat and a Cloud God) and many in a different style (the book starting as magic realism but diverting via folklore, sea-hunting, film-noir detective style, a couple of humorous sections, before ending up in more in fantasy territory).
Certainly an interesting novel, and distinctive if only in the different element that it fuses together. It also has a strong sense of place and nature, and the extension of magic realism seems natural for an Island which already has a its own ancient history and culture, as well as distinct animals and plants, which seemed wonderful and remarkable to Western colonisers while at the same time they largely obliterated the indigenous people.
But also, like many debut novels with a number of flaws. The two humorous sections (an exchange of letters and some country memoirs) are rather poor, and some of the other sections can be clunky (sometimes the author seems to explain things which simply do not explaining). At times the shift of styles can feel like the author spinning a wheel to choose a writing style like in an improv. Comedy show, and personally I rather regretted that the wheel ended stuck on “write in the style of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods”
3.5 stars rounded down for the “Last Graham” explanation.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Richard Flanagan for this Tasmanian Fusion of Fantasy, Folklore, Flora and Fauna.
The first chapter introduces us to the McAllister family – whose woman folk are cremated after death, but then are briefly resurrected their bodies somehow fused with the nature of the site where their ashes were scattered. After the death of his mother, who returned as a fern before self-immolating outside the house of his long estranged father, Levi becomes convinced that his sister Charlotte cannot move on from her death and so resolves to commission a coffin for her as a sign that he will not allow her to be cremated – something which causes her to flee to the South of the Island.
The second chapter introduces us to Karl – one of the famed sea-based hunters of the Island who form a lifelong bond with a seal pup as youths, later forming a deadly partnership which at its peak enables them to hunt down the daunting and deadly Oneblood Tuna.
Each chapter is named after an element (Ash, Salt, Fur, Iron etc), each largely from a different point of view character (Levi, his sister and father, Karl’s daughter, the coffin maker that Levi commissions, the detective he hires to trace Charlotte, the manger of a Wombat farm where the two girls meet, the local park ranger, a number of nature Gods including the Esk God – a water rat and a Cloud God) and many in a different style (the book starting as magic realism but diverting via folklore, sea-hunting, film-noir detective style, a couple of humorous sections, before ending up in more in fantasy territory).
Certainly an interesting novel, and distinctive if only in the different element that it fuses together. It also has a strong sense of place and nature, and the extension of magic realism seems natural for an Island which already has a its own ancient history and culture, as well as distinct animals and plants, which seemed wonderful and remarkable to Western colonisers while at the same time they largely obliterated the indigenous people.
But also, like many debut novels with a number of flaws. The two humorous sections (an exchange of letters and some country memoirs) are rather poor, and some of the other sections can be clunky (sometimes the author seems to explain things which simply do not explaining). At times the shift of styles can feel like the author spinning a wheel to choose a writing style like in an improv. Comedy show, and personally I rather regretted that the wheel ended stuck on “write in the style of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods”
3.5 stars rounded down for the “Last Graham” explanation.
January 29, 2019
Levi and Charlotte are not surprised when their mother returns from the dead a week after she has been cremated. The women of their family have been doing it for generations. Not all of them. It seems the ones who come back have a reason for doing so. Something left unfinished, a message to be delivered. All of them return supposedly back to whatever realm or plain they entered upon their first death, in an instant conflagration of flames once this unfinished task is completed. With both children grieving, Levi mistakes Charlottes’ grieving for fear. He thinks that Charlette is scared that she will return from the dead as well, so he decides to build her a coffin. All the McAllister women have been cremated, so Levi believes that if he buries Charlotte, he will stop her from coming back and assuage her fears. Charlette finds out about Levi building a coffin for her, and in all this confusion, thinks that Levi is going to bury her and flees. The narrative is full of great characters. The private investigator, refreshingly female, hired by Levi to track down Charlotte is an enjoyable character. So too is the coffin builder that Levi hires. The correspondence that flies back and forth between him and Levi is hilarious. The narrative however does not really concentrate on one character. It’s more of a grouping of many different stories that are loosely connected. There is something about this book, which just makes it a joy to read, and being such a short book, reread. Maybe it’s the magical realism that Arnott has poured into every part of the narrative. He has created a Tasmania in which the human inhabitants share their world with the gods. Animal gods, such as the water rat who is searching for his beloved Cloud God. Nature gods like the Cloud God and Fire God (the way Arnott deals with the creation of fire, and turning it into a sentient, conscious god was a highlight of the book for me). Being such a short book with so much going on there is a danger of the narrative just becoming cluttered and the plot a skein, impossible to untangle, but Arnott pulls it off brilliantly. This book is just so enjoyable to read, and I can see myself returning to it many times in the future. 4.5 Stars.
January 4, 2024
A brilliant, exuberant novel which is like a magic-realist take on Tasmanian Gothic. Full of ideas and imagination, it's told through a series of narratives each from a different perspective – first-person, third-person, epistolary, in bursts of genre microfiction that range from romance to hardboiled detective fiction to folktale to gothic horror.
A strain of the fantastic runs through the stories here: giant tuna, fishermen who bond with seals, gods who take the form of creatures, women who return from the dead, elements that came alive. But nothing feels gimmicky; on the contrary, it feels like a wonderful way to write about a place (Tasmania, in this case, though only ever referred to as ‘the southern island’) because all the elemental aspects of the setting seem to have been personified and given a voice.
The ending, perhaps, can't quite live up to everything that came before it, but that's not a bad problem for a book to have, and if this has a few of the weaknesses of a first novel, it also has all the joy and energy and excitement of the best kinds of first novel. Talismanic, and extremely good fun.
A strain of the fantastic runs through the stories here: giant tuna, fishermen who bond with seals, gods who take the form of creatures, women who return from the dead, elements that came alive. But nothing feels gimmicky; on the contrary, it feels like a wonderful way to write about a place (Tasmania, in this case, though only ever referred to as ‘the southern island’) because all the elemental aspects of the setting seem to have been personified and given a voice.
The ending, perhaps, can't quite live up to everything that came before it, but that's not a bad problem for a book to have, and if this has a few of the weaknesses of a first novel, it also has all the joy and energy and excitement of the best kinds of first novel. Talismanic, and extremely good fun.
June 28, 2019
I find it difficult to take magical realism too seriously, but based on previous reviews by GR friends I was surprised that I didn't enjoy this book more. It started off wonderfully for me, then it just got a bit weird. Sorry to those of you who loved this one but it didn't work for me, especially the second half.
April 14, 2023
4.50 ⬆️ Stars — An Aussie Literary shooting star, Robbie Arnott’s most recent novel, The Rain Heron — Has been much amused both nationally and somewhat internationally, throughout the more Nick world of literary-fiction. Having bought that novel, I picked it up and as I started I stumbled, restarted and stumbled and found myself not ready for this type of novel, despite its lovely prose and setting.
Then, after almost forgetting about it I came across his wellie novel Flames. I read the first page on a whim, and was instantly hooked. The writing was exceptionally rich and full of word-porn I rarely succumb to. Winner of the Margaret Scott prize (2019) it also landed RA the young novelist award from the Sydney Morning Herald (2019) — it is easy too see why. This is a thoroughly interesting and articulate piece of fiction that records its characters with ornate care and love.
Flames by Aussie Robbie Arnott, is a mesmerising, beautiful & enchanting novel that explores themes of family, grief, the power of nature & the nature of power!
The author weaves a majestically painted story that takes the reader on a journey through the rugged and mystical landscape of Tasmania. The novel is a stunning work of literature that is both evocative and thought-provoking.
One of the things that I loved about this book was the way in which the author portrays the natural world. The landscapes are described with a vividness and detail that is truly breathtaking. As the protagonist discovers the magic and mystery of the land around him, the reader is transported to a place of wonder and awe.
“Everywhere was the sound of the forest, the rustling leaves and the chattering birds, and I realised that if I could understand them, if I could understand their language, then I could understand the whole world.”
Another aspect of the novel that I found deeply moving was the exploration of grief and loss. The characters are all struggling with their own personal demons, and the author does an excellent job of conveying the pain and heartbreak that they experience. Yet, despite the darkness and sadness, there is a sense of hope and resilience that shines through.
“There’s a great deal of sadness in this world, but there’s also a great deal of beauty, and it’s the balance between the two that makes life worth living.”
Finally, the writing itself is simply stunning. Arnott has a way with words that is truly remarkable. His prose is lyrical and poetic, and there were many times when I found myself stopping to reread a sentence or passage, simply to savor the beauty of the language.
“Flames lit up the sky and a million stars filled the night. I felt so small beneath it all, a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things. But I also felt connected to everything around me, as if all of creation was part of one great whole.”
It’s no surprise to you reading this review that I would very highly recommend ‘Flames’ to anyone looking for a beautifully written, compelling character study, that’s wholly a deeply moving novel. Arnott has created a near masterpiece that I do think will stay with me for a long time to come.
Then, after almost forgetting about it I came across his wellie novel Flames. I read the first page on a whim, and was instantly hooked. The writing was exceptionally rich and full of word-porn I rarely succumb to. Winner of the Margaret Scott prize (2019) it also landed RA the young novelist award from the Sydney Morning Herald (2019) — it is easy too see why. This is a thoroughly interesting and articulate piece of fiction that records its characters with ornate care and love.
Flames by Aussie Robbie Arnott, is a mesmerising, beautiful & enchanting novel that explores themes of family, grief, the power of nature & the nature of power!
The author weaves a majestically painted story that takes the reader on a journey through the rugged and mystical landscape of Tasmania. The novel is a stunning work of literature that is both evocative and thought-provoking.
One of the things that I loved about this book was the way in which the author portrays the natural world. The landscapes are described with a vividness and detail that is truly breathtaking. As the protagonist discovers the magic and mystery of the land around him, the reader is transported to a place of wonder and awe.
“Everywhere was the sound of the forest, the rustling leaves and the chattering birds, and I realised that if I could understand them, if I could understand their language, then I could understand the whole world.”
Another aspect of the novel that I found deeply moving was the exploration of grief and loss. The characters are all struggling with their own personal demons, and the author does an excellent job of conveying the pain and heartbreak that they experience. Yet, despite the darkness and sadness, there is a sense of hope and resilience that shines through.
“There’s a great deal of sadness in this world, but there’s also a great deal of beauty, and it’s the balance between the two that makes life worth living.”
Finally, the writing itself is simply stunning. Arnott has a way with words that is truly remarkable. His prose is lyrical and poetic, and there were many times when I found myself stopping to reread a sentence or passage, simply to savor the beauty of the language.
“Flames lit up the sky and a million stars filled the night. I felt so small beneath it all, a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things. But I also felt connected to everything around me, as if all of creation was part of one great whole.”
It’s no surprise to you reading this review that I would very highly recommend ‘Flames’ to anyone looking for a beautifully written, compelling character study, that’s wholly a deeply moving novel. Arnott has created a near masterpiece that I do think will stay with me for a long time to come.
May 29, 2019
3.5
This tipped too far into Neil Gaiman's world in the end there. However, it is a lovely celebration of everything Tasmanian. The section about the seal/tuna hunting is stunning, I was hoping the entire book was going to be in this vein.
This tipped too far into Neil Gaiman's world in the end there. However, it is a lovely celebration of everything Tasmanian. The section about the seal/tuna hunting is stunning, I was hoping the entire book was going to be in this vein.
May 12, 2018
“Black spurs of the mountain range poked high and sharp above them, daggering up into the pale sky. The sheer cliffs that fell away from these peaks revealed great faces of jagged Jurassic rock. Down where the land was less vertical snowgums gnarled their way out of frozen dirt, their trunks a patchwork of grey-brown-green, as if all the colours of the forest had poured themselves into a single species of tree.”
Flames is the first novel by Australian advertising copywriter and author, Robbie Arnott. About a third of the McAllister women die twice. Levi McAllister’s mother, Edith came back for four days after she was cremated, hung around adorned in ferns and moss, then burst into flames on his father, Jack’s front lawn. Levi’s gotten over that, but his sister Charlotte is still suffering a deep grief. Levi’s somewhat twisted logic leads him to a bizarre solution: he will build her a coffin.
When Charlotte stumbles upon his plans, she flees: “All she has left of her mother are photos and memories and a family tradition of flames, and she won’t let him take them from her. Charlotte will burn, tomorrow or in half a century, but she will burn. And she might return. Though that isn’t the point.” Charlotte heads south.
From there, the story progresses through different narrators and from different perspectives with each successive chapter. Each is titled with a significant word and, while the connections between them are sometimes tenuous, sometimes clear and strong, all falls into place by the final chapter. Most of the chapters are in narrative form, but other formats also feature: a series of letters; entries from a diary; and a chapter from a yet-to-be-published book.
Arnott uses an assortment of characters to tell the tale: a paranoid woodwork enthusiast; a nosy small-town matron with literary aspirations; a private investigator with a thirst for gin; a deity in the form of a water rat; a wombat-farmer slowly descending into madness; a National Park Ranger; a tuna fisherman in close partnership with a seal; a fire entity in human form. For such a short read, the characters have a surprising depth, even those whose names we never learn.
Arnott’s plot is original, and he keeps the reader intrigued with twists and turns and a dramatic climax. He takes the reader through emotional highs and lows as his characters feel joy and sorrow, grief, love and lust, fear, wonder, and loneliness. There’s plenty of humour, some of it subtle, some truly laugh-out-loud (Mavis and Thurston are major contributors to this, with imaginative names and salutations), and a genuinely satisfying conclusion.
It will be immediately apparent to anyone even vaguely familiar with Tasmania that Arnott is on intimate terms with his island, and his exquisite descriptive prose definitely does this gem of a place justice. Richard Flanagan says of this novel: “A strange and joyous marvel” and it’s easy to see why: there’s certainly a bit of Flanagan-like magic, but without his usual darkness, in this outstanding debut novel. More please, Mr Arnott!!
Flames is the first novel by Australian advertising copywriter and author, Robbie Arnott. About a third of the McAllister women die twice. Levi McAllister’s mother, Edith came back for four days after she was cremated, hung around adorned in ferns and moss, then burst into flames on his father, Jack’s front lawn. Levi’s gotten over that, but his sister Charlotte is still suffering a deep grief. Levi’s somewhat twisted logic leads him to a bizarre solution: he will build her a coffin.
When Charlotte stumbles upon his plans, she flees: “All she has left of her mother are photos and memories and a family tradition of flames, and she won’t let him take them from her. Charlotte will burn, tomorrow or in half a century, but she will burn. And she might return. Though that isn’t the point.” Charlotte heads south.
From there, the story progresses through different narrators and from different perspectives with each successive chapter. Each is titled with a significant word and, while the connections between them are sometimes tenuous, sometimes clear and strong, all falls into place by the final chapter. Most of the chapters are in narrative form, but other formats also feature: a series of letters; entries from a diary; and a chapter from a yet-to-be-published book.
Arnott uses an assortment of characters to tell the tale: a paranoid woodwork enthusiast; a nosy small-town matron with literary aspirations; a private investigator with a thirst for gin; a deity in the form of a water rat; a wombat-farmer slowly descending into madness; a National Park Ranger; a tuna fisherman in close partnership with a seal; a fire entity in human form. For such a short read, the characters have a surprising depth, even those whose names we never learn.
Arnott’s plot is original, and he keeps the reader intrigued with twists and turns and a dramatic climax. He takes the reader through emotional highs and lows as his characters feel joy and sorrow, grief, love and lust, fear, wonder, and loneliness. There’s plenty of humour, some of it subtle, some truly laugh-out-loud (Mavis and Thurston are major contributors to this, with imaginative names and salutations), and a genuinely satisfying conclusion.
It will be immediately apparent to anyone even vaguely familiar with Tasmania that Arnott is on intimate terms with his island, and his exquisite descriptive prose definitely does this gem of a place justice. Richard Flanagan says of this novel: “A strange and joyous marvel” and it’s easy to see why: there’s certainly a bit of Flanagan-like magic, but without his usual darkness, in this outstanding debut novel. More please, Mr Arnott!!
April 12, 2022
4.5★
I've been curious about this novel since it was first published, and while I thought the storyline sounded good, with the Tasmanian setting an added bonus, I'm a reader who shies away from magical realism and fantasy. So I recognised that this book could go either way for me - the potential was there for it to leave me feeling either enchanted or nauseated. I'm happy to say I adored it, to the point where I can imagine wanting to re-read it one day.
Although the story is told from multiple points of view (not all human, either), it manages to remain cohesive and the writing is consistent all the way through. Most of the chapters could be a short story in their own right, but they all add up to tell a tale of family connections, grief and loss, with a dash of mystery, set in a luscious landscape.
In fact, I think what the author excels at is describing the environment and creating atmosphere from it. From the crisp, misty-breathed cold of Crater Lake, to the dripping emerald lushness of Notley Fern Gorge and the windswept solitude of Melaleuca, I could just see it all so clearly in my mind.
This debut novel is a deserving award winner, and I'll be interested to see what the author does next.
I've been curious about this novel since it was first published, and while I thought the storyline sounded good, with the Tasmanian setting an added bonus, I'm a reader who shies away from magical realism and fantasy. So I recognised that this book could go either way for me - the potential was there for it to leave me feeling either enchanted or nauseated. I'm happy to say I adored it, to the point where I can imagine wanting to re-read it one day.
Although the story is told from multiple points of view (not all human, either), it manages to remain cohesive and the writing is consistent all the way through. Most of the chapters could be a short story in their own right, but they all add up to tell a tale of family connections, grief and loss, with a dash of mystery, set in a luscious landscape.
In fact, I think what the author excels at is describing the environment and creating atmosphere from it. From the crisp, misty-breathed cold of Crater Lake, to the dripping emerald lushness of Notley Fern Gorge and the windswept solitude of Melaleuca, I could just see it all so clearly in my mind.
This debut novel is a deserving award winner, and I'll be interested to see what the author does next.
February 11, 2018
This book is beguiling and beautiful. So much #auslit is about grief but Arnott approaches the theme with mythological originality. The interconnectness of people and place unravels naturally and powerfully in this extraordinary novel. I loved it and Arnott is definitely one to watch. His control of language and voice had me enraptured. Hot damn!
October 20, 2022
There is a message or ideas that an author writes into a novel and the message or ideas I get from the story. These may not be at all the same. I do like a novel that leaves me with almost as many questions as answers, that makes me wonder about the larger story, before the beginning and after the end. This novel was that kind of story. I admired most the author's creative way of telling this story and the many twists and turns it took along the way. I was just not so sure what it was about while I was reading it. It took till the end to understand. It took some faith.
I was anxious to read this novel after listening to the audio of the author's 2nd book, The Rain Heron which had been nominated for the Miles Franklin prize, one of Australia's highest literary awards. I loved the Rain Heron--it remains one of my favorite books, so wanted to read Flames, his first novel as it also has great reviews. Unfortunately it is not easy to find in the U.S.A. It certainly sent me on several wild goose chases and after my reading I can see how fitting that was for this strange book.
This is the story of a brother and sister coping or not coping so well after their mother dies. It is coming of age type story with lots of magical realism intertwined. At first I found it quite difficult to follow. It is described as being about a brother building a coffin for his sister. That does play an important beginning point of this story but that is not what the story is about. I found it to be a story about families, the secrets of our family's past, the family environment that shapes us and the family we create ourselves. It is incredibly uniquely told and I had to get to the end of it to understand all the many parts. For much of the book (a little over 200 pages) I felt lost in the woods, unsure where the author was trying to lead me and not so sure that I liked not understanding where the story was going but I stuck with it and was more than rewarded with the whole.
I think the Rain Heron is more polished. I could really see the writer's development between the two books and continue to be anxious to see what he will do next. I was sorry I could not find an audio of this book as I think it would lend itself well to be told in that form.
I was anxious to read this novel after listening to the audio of the author's 2nd book, The Rain Heron which had been nominated for the Miles Franklin prize, one of Australia's highest literary awards. I loved the Rain Heron--it remains one of my favorite books, so wanted to read Flames, his first novel as it also has great reviews. Unfortunately it is not easy to find in the U.S.A. It certainly sent me on several wild goose chases and after my reading I can see how fitting that was for this strange book.
This is the story of a brother and sister coping or not coping so well after their mother dies. It is coming of age type story with lots of magical realism intertwined. At first I found it quite difficult to follow. It is described as being about a brother building a coffin for his sister. That does play an important beginning point of this story but that is not what the story is about. I found it to be a story about families, the secrets of our family's past, the family environment that shapes us and the family we create ourselves. It is incredibly uniquely told and I had to get to the end of it to understand all the many parts. For much of the book (a little over 200 pages) I felt lost in the woods, unsure where the author was trying to lead me and not so sure that I liked not understanding where the story was going but I stuck with it and was more than rewarded with the whole.
I think the Rain Heron is more polished. I could really see the writer's development between the two books and continue to be anxious to see what he will do next. I was sorry I could not find an audio of this book as I think it would lend itself well to be told in that form.
Read
August 17, 2018‘A strange and joyous marvel.’
Richard Flanagan
‘Flames is brilliant…Enjoy it for its prose poetry, its vivid imagery, its brilliant turns of phrase on nearly every page.’
NZ Listener
‘An Australian literary fabulist classic – well, it certainly deserves to be.’
Avid Reader
‘Unique and memorable…Extraordinary energy…A rich and memorable picture with prose of an exceptionally high quality. You won’t read another Australian literary novel like this anytime soon.’
Kill Your Darlings
‘It's not hard to see where the hype came from. This is an assured, funny and highly imaginative work. Flames is strange from the first, arresting sentence.’
Stuff NZ
‘Highly innovative…[A] finely built and realised first novel.’
Otago Daily Times
‘[A] novel you will want to read more than once, not so much to plumb its depths as to savour its wild variety of styles and voices, to revel in its breathtaking descriptions of Tasmanian wilderness and to grasp its intricate structure…There is no doubt that a poetically wild and wicked imagination is at work here. More please!’
SA Weekend
‘Arnott confidently borrows from the genres of crime fiction, thriller, romance, comedy, eco-literature, and magical realism, throws them in the air, and lets the pieces land to form a flaming new world.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘This is a startlingly good first novel, stylistically adventurous, gorgeous in its descriptions and with a compelling narrative that should find a wide readership.’
Australian
‘A very readable, well written tale set in Tasmania.’
Sharon Peterson, Readings St Kilda
‘An extremely evocative and imaginative work…Undeniably powerful...it is refreshing to see the Australian landscape written about so vividly.’
Good Reading
‘The key triumph of Flames is bringing Australia’s southern island state to vivid life, characterising it as a robust survivor shaped by the extremes of fire and flood.’
Big Issue
‘Poignant and beautifully written…Richly detailed…A stunning homage to Tasmania…A deep and powerful reflection on what it is to be human and how we navigate the ravages of loss. I haven’t read a more unique debut Australian work in a very long time and was mesmerised by the story. It took hold of me from the first page and had me captivated until the end. Such is the uniqueness of Arnott’s voice and his effortless ability to combine an eclectic mix of genres into a potent narrative, this story sings and continues to resonate long after finishing. It was as if I had been drawn into the Tasmanian bush myself.’
Bathurst City Life
'A surprising story with a definite feminist edge…the novel’s playfulness and poetry make for a fresh and entertaining read.'
Saturday Paper
‘It will be immediately apparent to anyone even vaguely familiar with Tasmania that Arnott is on intimate terms with his island, and his exquisite descriptive prose definitely does this gem of a place justice…More please, Mr Arnott.’
BookMooch
‘A gloriously audacious book. It runs astonishing risks and takes on the biggest emotions…It bowled me sideways.’
New Zealand Herald
‘The quirkiness of the characters—a staple of novels set in small-town Australia—allows for good-natured humour as well as biting satire, but it’s the mythic qualities of this novel that make it special. It’s as if Arnott has invented a whole mythology that is all our very own. If you like the fiction of Jane Rawson, I think you will like this one too.’
ANZ Lit Lovers
‘Flames is an exuberantly creative and confident debut. This is a story that sparks with invention…Invigorating, strange and occasionally brutal.’
Australian Book Review
‘This is the kind of book that you’ll be able to read a second, third, even fourth time, and it will still never reveal all its secrets. Composed with meticulous attention to detail, and a mastery of form rarely found in a debut novel, Flames will keep you stewing long after you’ve finished reading it.’
Readings
‘Arnott skilfully switches between different voices and genres in a trick reminiscent of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. The range he displays is impressive, swinging from fable to gothic horror to hardboiled detective story.’
Books+Publishing
‘Visionary, vivid, full of audacious transformations: there’s a marvellous energy to this writing that returns the world to us aflame. A brilliant and wholly original debut.’
Gail Jones
‘Robbie Arnott is a vivid and bold new voice in Australian fiction.’
Danielle Wood
‘Ambitious storytelling from a stunning new Australian voice. Flames is constantly surprising—I never knew where the story would take me next. This book has a lovely sense of wonder for the world. It’s brimming with heart and compassion.’
Rohan Wilson
Richard Flanagan
‘Flames is brilliant…Enjoy it for its prose poetry, its vivid imagery, its brilliant turns of phrase on nearly every page.’
NZ Listener
‘An Australian literary fabulist classic – well, it certainly deserves to be.’
Avid Reader
‘Unique and memorable…Extraordinary energy…A rich and memorable picture with prose of an exceptionally high quality. You won’t read another Australian literary novel like this anytime soon.’
Kill Your Darlings
‘It's not hard to see where the hype came from. This is an assured, funny and highly imaginative work. Flames is strange from the first, arresting sentence.’
Stuff NZ
‘Highly innovative…[A] finely built and realised first novel.’
Otago Daily Times
‘[A] novel you will want to read more than once, not so much to plumb its depths as to savour its wild variety of styles and voices, to revel in its breathtaking descriptions of Tasmanian wilderness and to grasp its intricate structure…There is no doubt that a poetically wild and wicked imagination is at work here. More please!’
SA Weekend
‘Arnott confidently borrows from the genres of crime fiction, thriller, romance, comedy, eco-literature, and magical realism, throws them in the air, and lets the pieces land to form a flaming new world.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘This is a startlingly good first novel, stylistically adventurous, gorgeous in its descriptions and with a compelling narrative that should find a wide readership.’
Australian
‘A very readable, well written tale set in Tasmania.’
Sharon Peterson, Readings St Kilda
‘An extremely evocative and imaginative work…Undeniably powerful...it is refreshing to see the Australian landscape written about so vividly.’
Good Reading
‘The key triumph of Flames is bringing Australia’s southern island state to vivid life, characterising it as a robust survivor shaped by the extremes of fire and flood.’
Big Issue
‘Poignant and beautifully written…Richly detailed…A stunning homage to Tasmania…A deep and powerful reflection on what it is to be human and how we navigate the ravages of loss. I haven’t read a more unique debut Australian work in a very long time and was mesmerised by the story. It took hold of me from the first page and had me captivated until the end. Such is the uniqueness of Arnott’s voice and his effortless ability to combine an eclectic mix of genres into a potent narrative, this story sings and continues to resonate long after finishing. It was as if I had been drawn into the Tasmanian bush myself.’
Bathurst City Life
'A surprising story with a definite feminist edge…the novel’s playfulness and poetry make for a fresh and entertaining read.'
Saturday Paper
‘It will be immediately apparent to anyone even vaguely familiar with Tasmania that Arnott is on intimate terms with his island, and his exquisite descriptive prose definitely does this gem of a place justice…More please, Mr Arnott.’
BookMooch
‘A gloriously audacious book. It runs astonishing risks and takes on the biggest emotions…It bowled me sideways.’
New Zealand Herald
‘The quirkiness of the characters—a staple of novels set in small-town Australia—allows for good-natured humour as well as biting satire, but it’s the mythic qualities of this novel that make it special. It’s as if Arnott has invented a whole mythology that is all our very own. If you like the fiction of Jane Rawson, I think you will like this one too.’
ANZ Lit Lovers
‘Flames is an exuberantly creative and confident debut. This is a story that sparks with invention…Invigorating, strange and occasionally brutal.’
Australian Book Review
‘This is the kind of book that you’ll be able to read a second, third, even fourth time, and it will still never reveal all its secrets. Composed with meticulous attention to detail, and a mastery of form rarely found in a debut novel, Flames will keep you stewing long after you’ve finished reading it.’
Readings
‘Arnott skilfully switches between different voices and genres in a trick reminiscent of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. The range he displays is impressive, swinging from fable to gothic horror to hardboiled detective story.’
Books+Publishing
‘Visionary, vivid, full of audacious transformations: there’s a marvellous energy to this writing that returns the world to us aflame. A brilliant and wholly original debut.’
Gail Jones
‘Robbie Arnott is a vivid and bold new voice in Australian fiction.’
Danielle Wood
‘Ambitious storytelling from a stunning new Australian voice. Flames is constantly surprising—I never knew where the story would take me next. This book has a lovely sense of wonder for the world. It’s brimming with heart and compassion.’
Rohan Wilson
June 10, 2019
I found this book quite astonishing. With its magical realism against a distinctly Tasmanian backdrop, it felt like Isabel Allende or Laura Esquivel meets Richard Flanagan. Perhaps also with a generous dollop of Joan Lindsay’s depictions of the Australian bush as a character in its own right and the inclusion of vivid native fauna totems thrown in. But that gives the impression that this work is derivative, and it isn’t - Arnott is an original and exciting new voice in the small but elite Tasmanian writing landscape. I’ll be honest that I’m not a great lover of the fantasy genre (although I wouldn’t say that’s where this novel sits anyway), and have to be in the right literary head space to read magical realism, but this book hit the spot for me, one of those unexpected literary gifts you don’t see coming. I’ll definitely have my beady eye out for any and all future offerings by Arnott.
April 19, 2024
Author Robbie Arnott has received a fair bit of positivity on a few Australian Lit Blogs that I subscribe to. A week back my Spotify account recommended this one as an audiobook, so I thought why not considering those nice online reviews.
To say I have enjoyed this audio would be an understatement. Anyone that has read my scribbles over time would know I have never shied away from my admiration of Tasmanian literature. I am not going to shy away from this one, it joins all that grabs me and spits me out about the island's writing. Flames is Goth fantasy that from a curious start had me listening to the excellent telling of this terrific plot at every opportunity. My audio listening is for my walks or in the car, but I just sat in the comfy chair with the JBL’s stuck on the head, I was that engrossed.
A family is enjoined with flame as part of their very existence. How so? That would be giving it away as to the tale told but let’s just say that this is a curse on the physical life and psychology of the family involved, the father, the mother and their two children. Son Levi wants to have a coffin made for his sister Charlotte, for reasons that become obvious as time goes on. Charlotte wants none of this and escapes to the safety of an anonymous life in the south of the island. And from this wild beginning we meet an irate coffin maker, a very strange wombat farmer, an alcoholic private detective and a few more wild characters along the way. Add to that an animal god and what a yarn delivered.
This is a very good debut and is recommended to all us that know and enjoy Tassie Lit.
To say I have enjoyed this audio would be an understatement. Anyone that has read my scribbles over time would know I have never shied away from my admiration of Tasmanian literature. I am not going to shy away from this one, it joins all that grabs me and spits me out about the island's writing. Flames is Goth fantasy that from a curious start had me listening to the excellent telling of this terrific plot at every opportunity. My audio listening is for my walks or in the car, but I just sat in the comfy chair with the JBL’s stuck on the head, I was that engrossed.
A family is enjoined with flame as part of their very existence. How so? That would be giving it away as to the tale told but let’s just say that this is a curse on the physical life and psychology of the family involved, the father, the mother and their two children. Son Levi wants to have a coffin made for his sister Charlotte, for reasons that become obvious as time goes on. Charlotte wants none of this and escapes to the safety of an anonymous life in the south of the island. And from this wild beginning we meet an irate coffin maker, a very strange wombat farmer, an alcoholic private detective and a few more wild characters along the way. Add to that an animal god and what a yarn delivered.
This is a very good debut and is recommended to all us that know and enjoy Tassie Lit.
December 6, 2018
I could underline the whole book and I am not exaggerating. I've scribbled in the margins of nearly every page. Exquisite language - a marriage of nature, grief and folk lore. This book is so moving and beautifully crafted that I want to re read it already. I wish I could give this SIX STARS. Also, lots of Easter eggs for the careful reader (I am sure you'd annotate like crazy too. This book is so good). Highly recommended.
September 27, 2020
On reflection more a 4 than a 5. Somewhat uneven in sections. But in terms of my personal delight from the read a 4.5.
Arnott's Flames is a pyrotechnic wonder, a joyous playful and even frenzied fun house of magic realism that I feel was written just for me and my tastes.
It's like Marquez and Gaiman mixed in with some Winton to produce this weird love child of a book concoction. I get that it would be all too much for some readers and Arnott at points does lose control of the fire that he is stoking, but I'm happy to tolerate those out of control moments.
Robbie Arnott is Tasmanian and his deep love and respect for the wonderfully diverse lanscapes, flora and fauna of that great southern island is over every page. Some gorgeous passages describing this land.
The book starts, "Our mother returned to us two days after we spread her ashes over Notley Fern Gorge. She was definitely our mother - but, at the same time, she was not our mother at all. Since her dispersal among the fronds of Notley, she had changed. Now her skin was carpeted by spongy, verdant moss and thin tendrils of common filmy fern. Large fronds of tree fern had sprouted from her back and extended past her waist in a layered peacock tail of vegetation. And her hair had been replaced by cascading fronds of lawn-coloured miadenhair - perhaps the most delicate fern of all.
This kind of thing wasn't uncommon in our family"
So from the opening you know what kind of literary territory you're in and things get wonderfully stranger from here on in. I won't say too much about the story as I think there is a joy in just experiencing where this book goes and how it gets you there.
I will say though it includes a water rat river god, boys and men bonding with seal pups to form a life time bond and hunt giant Oneblood tuna, a man that morphs into a cormorant and a brilliantly feisty and fiery young woman (Charlotte). It's about our connections with the natural world, family, love and desire.
There are passages for me that did not quite work, especially some Raymond Chandleresqe hard boiled style sections involving a woman detective. Some of that felt contrived and a little try hard. Arnott creatively plays with different styles from horror to magic realism. It really should not work. It should just all collapse in a mess and perhaps for some readers it does. For me it is wonderful. Looking forward to now reading Arnott's Rain Heron.
Highly recommended and worth it just for the passages about the tuna fisherman and his bond with his seal fishing partner.
Arnott's Flames is a pyrotechnic wonder, a joyous playful and even frenzied fun house of magic realism that I feel was written just for me and my tastes.
It's like Marquez and Gaiman mixed in with some Winton to produce this weird love child of a book concoction. I get that it would be all too much for some readers and Arnott at points does lose control of the fire that he is stoking, but I'm happy to tolerate those out of control moments.
Robbie Arnott is Tasmanian and his deep love and respect for the wonderfully diverse lanscapes, flora and fauna of that great southern island is over every page. Some gorgeous passages describing this land.
The book starts, "Our mother returned to us two days after we spread her ashes over Notley Fern Gorge. She was definitely our mother - but, at the same time, she was not our mother at all. Since her dispersal among the fronds of Notley, she had changed. Now her skin was carpeted by spongy, verdant moss and thin tendrils of common filmy fern. Large fronds of tree fern had sprouted from her back and extended past her waist in a layered peacock tail of vegetation. And her hair had been replaced by cascading fronds of lawn-coloured miadenhair - perhaps the most delicate fern of all.
This kind of thing wasn't uncommon in our family"
So from the opening you know what kind of literary territory you're in and things get wonderfully stranger from here on in. I won't say too much about the story as I think there is a joy in just experiencing where this book goes and how it gets you there.
I will say though it includes a water rat river god, boys and men bonding with seal pups to form a life time bond and hunt giant Oneblood tuna, a man that morphs into a cormorant and a brilliantly feisty and fiery young woman (Charlotte). It's about our connections with the natural world, family, love and desire.
There are passages for me that did not quite work, especially some Raymond Chandleresqe hard boiled style sections involving a woman detective. Some of that felt contrived and a little try hard. Arnott creatively plays with different styles from horror to magic realism. It really should not work. It should just all collapse in a mess and perhaps for some readers it does. For me it is wonderful. Looking forward to now reading Arnott's Rain Heron.
Highly recommended and worth it just for the passages about the tuna fisherman and his bond with his seal fishing partner.
January 22, 2019
Charlotte is watching the waters of three rivers meet. The two Esk’s – one brown and slow, the other churned white – mix in the broad slate Tamar that pushes north, away from Charlotte, through the reedy wetlands. Beneath the water’s three-way face swim countless mud eels, but nobody is angling for them from the pontoons that hang onto the river’s edge–it is too dark. Earlier the sun would have dipped behind the cliffs of Launceston’s craggy gorge, brushing the waterfront with fingers of pale winter light, but now the docks have sunk too deep into the sky’s navy for anything to be visible in detail…
It has been some time since I enjoyed the majesty of words spilling across a page, and in his debut novel author Robbie Arnott comes up with something special: a treatise on death, madness and mourning – akin to a contemporary Shakespearean tragedy – set in Tasmania with a Dreamtime-like folklore of man upsetting the fine balance of nature and its spirit gods.
The women in the McAlister household, raised on the coast near Launceston, reappear post-cremation in spiritual form. Their mother has recently died, and Charlotte discovers that her deluded brother, Levi is reading a book on coffins and making notes on her measurements. Naturally she takes off to escape his madness, but undaunted Levi enlists the services of a coffin-maker and a private detective to track his sister down.
A second family lives a few miles away. Karl, a local fisherman, bonds with a NZ fur seal pup and together they hunt and catch tuna; he is married to Louise and they have 2 daughters, but sadness befalls when the seal is killed by orcas.
The tale unfolds from several points-of-view, in a narrative that daisy-chains, taking in coastline, farmland and wilderness from Launceston to Melaleuca and Cradle Mountain as the stories converge. Dialogue is minimal and written in italics, no inverted commas. The coffin-maker is a wretched soul who kills a river god for its pelt, sparking his own demise and tragedy on a grand scale: all the males in the story seem driven or self-centred, the females protective and nurturing. But the best character for me was the detective, describing the world in her own eyes.
The world whipped past me in an agricultural blur. Sheep clouded the fields. The sky kept thinking about rain without ever making a commitment to it. Bored by ceaseless farmland I leaned my foot harder, and an hour later I hit Tunbridge.
Verdict: haunting, quirky, with an unfinished quality.
It has been some time since I enjoyed the majesty of words spilling across a page, and in his debut novel author Robbie Arnott comes up with something special: a treatise on death, madness and mourning – akin to a contemporary Shakespearean tragedy – set in Tasmania with a Dreamtime-like folklore of man upsetting the fine balance of nature and its spirit gods.
The women in the McAlister household, raised on the coast near Launceston, reappear post-cremation in spiritual form. Their mother has recently died, and Charlotte discovers that her deluded brother, Levi is reading a book on coffins and making notes on her measurements. Naturally she takes off to escape his madness, but undaunted Levi enlists the services of a coffin-maker and a private detective to track his sister down.
A second family lives a few miles away. Karl, a local fisherman, bonds with a NZ fur seal pup and together they hunt and catch tuna; he is married to Louise and they have 2 daughters, but sadness befalls when the seal is killed by orcas.
The tale unfolds from several points-of-view, in a narrative that daisy-chains, taking in coastline, farmland and wilderness from Launceston to Melaleuca and Cradle Mountain as the stories converge. Dialogue is minimal and written in italics, no inverted commas. The coffin-maker is a wretched soul who kills a river god for its pelt, sparking his own demise and tragedy on a grand scale: all the males in the story seem driven or self-centred, the females protective and nurturing. But the best character for me was the detective, describing the world in her own eyes.
The world whipped past me in an agricultural blur. Sheep clouded the fields. The sky kept thinking about rain without ever making a commitment to it. Bored by ceaseless farmland I leaned my foot harder, and an hour later I hit Tunbridge.
Verdict: haunting, quirky, with an unfinished quality.
December 19, 2018
Mad, brilliant and exciting. If you want to feel reinvigorated as a reader, take the plunge. I read it in two sittings. Will read it again to make sure I understood what the fuck I was reading. Bravo.
October 18, 2018
Weird, surreal and beautiful.
I hiked the Overland Track a few years ago and the authors description of the environment takes me right back to Tasmania.
I hiked the Overland Track a few years ago and the authors description of the environment takes me right back to Tasmania.
November 12, 2018
4.5 stars Highly original and beautifully written, this is one of the best debut novels I've read this year. I'm keeping my eye on Arnott - everyone should. Can't wait to see what he does next.
December 7, 2022
Robbie Arnott is a very talented writer, this first novel shows great promise in bits and starts, but I found the overall narrative jumping around in uneven sections disjointed and hard to follow. Having read his next two novels, the third taking me most of the book to get into the narrative, I stayed with this longer than I otherwise would have.
Besides the disjointed and uneven sections, in the end the killing of Tasmanian wildlife, including tuna and seals, just too unpleasant for me to stay with. Talented writer, this one was too unpleasant overall for me. DNF at around 60%. Library ebook. And I love wombats.
Besides the disjointed and uneven sections, in the end the killing of Tasmanian wildlife, including tuna and seals, just too unpleasant for me to stay with. Talented writer, this one was too unpleasant overall for me. DNF at around 60%. Library ebook. And I love wombats.
March 26, 2018
A strange, magical, nigh mythical work of deeply Australian storytelling in which the characters are almost indistinguishable from the elemental forces that rage within. Trust me, you haven't read anything like it. Just beautiful.
December 19, 2020
A book from Tassie called Flames has to be about bushfires, right? Well, not quite. This strange and beautiful book begins with the tale of the McAllister women, who reincarnate after death to deal with unfinished business, old grudges, forgotten chores. And they do it with flame…
Levi McAllister sees the transformation:
She stays for four days, but on the third day ceases showering to keep the foliage moist:
Intrigued? I certainly was…
What follows is a series of what seems initially like disconnected short stories which vary in weirdness from a fisherman who works in tandem with a seal pup to catch Oneblood tuna fish, to a psychotic farmer of wombats, to a gin-swigging tough-dame detective, to a water-rat who’s god of the Esk River, but these elements are all linked to form an extraordinary tale. Once you surrender to the world of the novel, it has a compelling narrative arc...
https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/05/21/f...
To read the rest of my review please visit
Levi McAllister sees the transformation:
Our mother returned to us two days after we spread her ashes over Notley Fern Gorge. She was definitely our mother – but at the same time, she was not our mother at all. Since her dispersal among the fronds of Notley, she had changed. Now her skin was carpeted by spongy, verdant moss and thin tendrils of common filmy fern. Six large fronds of tree fern had sprouted from her back and extended past her waist in a layered peacock tail of vegetation. And her hair had been replaced by cascading fronds of lawn-coloured maidenhair – perhaps the most delicate fern of all. (p.1)
She stays for four days, but on the third day ceases showering to keep the foliage moist:
… on the fourth she walked out the front door, smiled at the winter sun and hiked for a full day to our father’s house, where she waited on his lawn for him to find her.
By the time he did she’d been without water for two days. Her foliage was brown, cracked and dust-dry. As our father walked towards her, she began vigorously rubbing two of her large tree-fern fronds together. When he was within speaking distance a thin curl of smoke began rising from her back. And when he reached out to touch her mossy face a crackled lick of fire spread up, over and through her. He recoiled, falling backwards as her body swarmed with flames and she burned, fast and bright and loud, blood-orange in the night. (p.3)
Intrigued? I certainly was…
What follows is a series of what seems initially like disconnected short stories which vary in weirdness from a fisherman who works in tandem with a seal pup to catch Oneblood tuna fish, to a psychotic farmer of wombats, to a gin-swigging tough-dame detective, to a water-rat who’s god of the Esk River, but these elements are all linked to form an extraordinary tale. Once you surrender to the world of the novel, it has a compelling narrative arc...
https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/05/21/f...
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July 18, 2022
Oh man, I just loved this title from Robbie Arnott! It just presents everything I love; fantasy, folklore, animism, supernatural powers. It was surreal yet completely sublime.
If you want a complete break from reality, and an exploration into Maori type folklore, then give this a go. Suspend your sense of the actuality and go with the flow! You might like the trip!
If you want a complete break from reality, and an exploration into Maori type folklore, then give this a go. Suspend your sense of the actuality and go with the flow! You might like the trip!
October 4, 2018
3 1/2 stars. Absolutely loved the sense of place and thought Arnott described Tasmania beautifully. I also really enjoyed the elements of magical realism as they helped create an atmosphere of a mystical ancient world. Unfortunately I think Arnott then tried to put in too many backstories and sidelines which diluted the focus of this novel. Some of these sections would have been fantastic stories in there own right. I also didn’t enjoy the section about the wombats because everybody loves wombats!
September 15, 2019
‘Our mother returned to us two days after we spread her ashes over Notley Fern Gorge. She was definitely our mother – but, at the same time, she was not our mother at all.’
I kept reading, intrigued by Mr Arnott’s opening, curious about where the story would take me. I learned that sometimes the McAllister women did reincarnate after death. Levi McAllister, who saw his mother’s transformation, is determined to prevent his sister Charlotte sharing their mother’s fate. He decides to build her a coffin. Charlotte McAllister flees. And what about their father Jack McAllister?
The novel unfolds over fourteen chapters, stories which seem self-contained at first, but link in surprising ways. Karl is a fisherman who works with a seal pup over a number of years: the two of them eventually successful as a team catching Oneblood tuna. When the seal is lost to orcas, Karl’s world is no longer certain:
‘He knew he needed to do something to keep himself occupied, but all he knew was swell and spear and seal.’
And there’s my personal favourite, the Esk God, a water rat:
‘He flipped over and headed upriver, swimming towards the mountain that the dark apes called turbunna and the pale apes called Ben Lomond.’
His presence, and then his absence, will cast its own shadow over the story and some of the other characters. Much of this story is set in parts of Tasmania I know: the north-west and the Tamar valley, and parts I know of in the south and north-east. I read, and I feel (mostly) at home in the setting, swept up in the notion of wombat farming, amused and bemused by some of the characters.
There are different stories: people, creatures and landscape all have a part to play here, with the magic of imagination to shape some of the interactions and magnify the effects of others. I especially liked the way Mr Arnott ties the separate parts of story together, to present a logical (albeit magical) whole. I wonder if the Esk God would like it?
I loved this novel: the cleverness of it, the world created which borrows from reality, leavened with magic. It’s simultaneously sad and joyful: with characters both unreal, surreal and very real.
My thanks to Annette, a fellow expatriate Tasmanian, for drawing this novel to my attention. I am so glad you did.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
I kept reading, intrigued by Mr Arnott’s opening, curious about where the story would take me. I learned that sometimes the McAllister women did reincarnate after death. Levi McAllister, who saw his mother’s transformation, is determined to prevent his sister Charlotte sharing their mother’s fate. He decides to build her a coffin. Charlotte McAllister flees. And what about their father Jack McAllister?
The novel unfolds over fourteen chapters, stories which seem self-contained at first, but link in surprising ways. Karl is a fisherman who works with a seal pup over a number of years: the two of them eventually successful as a team catching Oneblood tuna. When the seal is lost to orcas, Karl’s world is no longer certain:
‘He knew he needed to do something to keep himself occupied, but all he knew was swell and spear and seal.’
And there’s my personal favourite, the Esk God, a water rat:
‘He flipped over and headed upriver, swimming towards the mountain that the dark apes called turbunna and the pale apes called Ben Lomond.’
His presence, and then his absence, will cast its own shadow over the story and some of the other characters. Much of this story is set in parts of Tasmania I know: the north-west and the Tamar valley, and parts I know of in the south and north-east. I read, and I feel (mostly) at home in the setting, swept up in the notion of wombat farming, amused and bemused by some of the characters.
There are different stories: people, creatures and landscape all have a part to play here, with the magic of imagination to shape some of the interactions and magnify the effects of others. I especially liked the way Mr Arnott ties the separate parts of story together, to present a logical (albeit magical) whole. I wonder if the Esk God would like it?
I loved this novel: the cleverness of it, the world created which borrows from reality, leavened with magic. It’s simultaneously sad and joyful: with characters both unreal, surreal and very real.
My thanks to Annette, a fellow expatriate Tasmanian, for drawing this novel to my attention. I am so glad you did.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 23, 2018
Being a Tasmanian local I thought WOW. A novel written by a young Tasmanian set in Tasmania, something I can enjoy and relate to.
But instead I found this novel a bit disjointed, strange and somewhat odd. Although I did really enjoy the descriptiveness of the Tasmanian bush, animals, scenery and places. They were spot on and you could really picture the scenes and the beauty of this great state.
The story to me had glimpses of The Firestarter by Stephen King and even JRR Tolkien novels but just not as good as far as the storyline went.
Our book reading group will be reviewing this soon so I am interested to see what others thought. I am glad I read it but it is not really my kind of book.
But instead I found this novel a bit disjointed, strange and somewhat odd. Although I did really enjoy the descriptiveness of the Tasmanian bush, animals, scenery and places. They were spot on and you could really picture the scenes and the beauty of this great state.
The story to me had glimpses of The Firestarter by Stephen King and even JRR Tolkien novels but just not as good as far as the storyline went.
Our book reading group will be reviewing this soon so I am interested to see what others thought. I am glad I read it but it is not really my kind of book.
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