It’s the end of the year and I’m running on empty, but I enjoyed Julie Koh’s collection of short stories, ‘Portable Curiosities’, released this year through UQP, so here’s a real short review because a) UQP is an awesome publisher and deserves all the coverage it can get, b) the book was good and c) look at the cover. Look at the COVER! Amazing .
I feel like I must have missed something with this book, considering the almost universal praise it’s received! To me, everything about this book was fine. Not terrible, but not outstanding. Just fine. I read and watch a lot of crime drama so I guess I have fairly high standards? Don’t know! I did enjoy the way Harper created the vibe of a small country Aussie town though. I think that if you’re Aussie or have lived here for any length of time – whether you were born here or not – everyone, and I mean everyone, knows the danger of a live flame in the bush during fire season. Harper creates and draws upon our collective dread of the ‘dry’ really well and it felt real and convincing, as well as providing an eerie threatening backdrop for a set of pretty gruesome murders.
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I enjoyed this book, a lot. Don’t let the premise put you off (mother of a family dies but somehow ‘remains’ out in the ether somewhere, able to narrate her family members’ lives and her own memories of them as she watches them grieve and heal over the ensuing years). Sounds terrible but actually worked pretty well – In the Quiet is less about negotiating the afterlife than it is detailing a family’s grief and death affects those still living.
julia tulloh harper 