Give Australain authors a chance

I am embarrassed to admit that until recently I tended to avoid books written by Australian authors, especially those in the "literary" category. Yes, I've read Colleen McCulloch, Bryce Courtney, and others of that type in the past but they tended to write books based in other countries, England, American or South Africa - not the places on my doorstep. Over the last six months I found it hard to find books that caught my interest in the local library so I started browsing the web,and reading the "Good Reading" magazine available in my local library, looking for new authors and books. Part of this has led me to read books such as "the Slap" by Chris Tsoilkas, and more recently Rhubarb by Craig Silvey. I'm sure many reading this blog have heard of "The Slap" but I think that Craig Silvey is an author that is probably not on your "to-read" list.

Craig's second book "Jasper Jones" won the 2009 Indie Book of the Year for 2009, an award where Australian independant bookshops vote to choose their favourite books from a short list of Australian books published last year. I have yet to read this as it has not been available at my local library until this week so I read "Rhubarb" his first novel published in 2004 instead. It was a surprise delight and an eye opener.

In short, the book is about two lonely people, Eleanor Rigby, a young blind girl (yes, just like the famous Beatles' song) and Ewan, the agoraphobic celloist, who identify things in each other which they are missing in themselves - Eleanor is drawn by the wonderful music that Ewan creates, and Ewan, to Eleanor's positive view on life and handling of her blindness. Their pasts are complicated and unravel as the book progresses, giving the reader insight into the characters and how they came to be the way they are.

The writing style is both challenging but engaging, sometimes funny, sometimes sad. There are four supporting characters - the unlikeable Bruno and his long suffering wife, Althea, Eleanor's friend Frank, who pretends his wife is still alive, and Eleanor's mother Estelle, who sits watching TV all day.

Occasionally, the descriptions bogged the story down, but overall, I loved this book, and can't wait to get down to my local library to get "Jasper Jones".