Bereft - Chris Womersley

If you like fiction with a historical basis, a bit of mystery and good outwitting evil then this may be a book for you. I picked this book up having read some good reviews in the media and quite liking the blurb on the back cover. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This is Chris Womersley’s second novel and is set at the end of the first world war with the Australian soldiers returning home from Europe to a very different Australia. The Spanish Influenza was sweeping the world and while Australia was somewhat protected from the severity of it’s effects, it still caused a large number of deaths, and had everyone acting with suspicion – state borders were closed, train travel restricted, and people suspected of being infected were quarantined.

The main character, Quinn, is introduced to us travelling home to country NSW after fighting in the war. Quinn has a past – he fled his home town at the age of 16 after being found next to his dead sister with blood on his clothes and a knife in his hand – a sign of guilt in his father’s eyes as well as the rest of the town. Ten years later, he is heading home to clear his name and make sure the murderer of his beloved sister is made to pay. He stays clear of the town so he won’t be recognised, but after almost being discovered by his uncle, is rescued and befriended by Sadie, a young teenager living in the bush after her mother dies of the influenza.  She is sure that her brother will return from the war to look after her, protecting her from the menace lurking in the town and saving her from being sent to an orphanage. Sadie is the same age as Quinn’s sister when she died, and her presence gives the novel a slight feel of karma and the story being retold but with a different ending.

The reader is taken on a journey, firstly meeting Quinn’s mother, who is very sick and quarantined to the family home, her husband talking to her through the window of the house. Quinn’s relationship with his mother on his return shows him as a sensitive soul, at odds with the crime with which he is accused. Then, there’s Quinn’s Uncle Dalton who is not all that he seems, and, finally Quinn’s relationship with Sadie – who Quinn is trying to protect from the past happening again. Sadie also seems to know more about what happened to Quinn's sister than she should - coincidence or the presence of the spirit world?  I will let you be the judge.

 I was fascinated with the descriptions of Quinn’s battle with what we would now call post traumatic stress syndrome and his precarious grasp of the present that got weaker as the novel continued. Often Quinn became confused between what was the present and the past and the reader is carried along on his hallucinations.

For me, the novel, also highlighted the freedom that children had in the past. Sadie’s confidence at living in the bush and her ingenuity and resourcefulness is something I wish my children had, but which seems to have been lost as a skill. 

A wonderful tale of despair and anguish but also hope and redemption, Bereft was an unexpected hit with me.