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The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Kim Kingston — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 00:19:33 +0000

This is the only book of Peter Carey’s I’ve ever actually liked. He’s one of those writers you know you’re supposed to admire but I just don’t quite get most of his books. But this one is a winner. Written phonetically and often hilariously from the perspective of Ned Kelly, it’s as much about police persecution and the abject, grinding poverty of the times as it is about Kelly’s crimes. The picture he paints of Australia’s history is nothing to be proud of, but compelling all the same. Unforgettable.

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The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

Kim Kingston — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 00:13:36 +0000

This one’s a ripper read, as compelling as any thriller. It relates to the brutal killing of a three year old boy in 1860. The crime is pure Agatha Christie; a house in the country full of unhappy, oppressed people, a shocking crime, a clever detective. But it’s also real, and Summerscale brings it vividly to life. Awesome.

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The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper

Kim Kingston — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 00:03:36 +0000

This vastly underrated true crime novel concerns the 2004 death in custody of Cameroon Doomadgee, an Aboriginal man who was arrested on Palm Island for a swearing at a police officer. Hooper is an outsider: she’s not a local of Palm Island, nor is she close to the police, but she responds to what she sees with a thoughtful intelligence. Like the best crime novels, this one raises more questions than it answers, and will leave you feeling unsetttled. Not an easy read, but a worthwhile one.

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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Kim Kingston — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 23:54:19 +0000

It’s a classic for a reason; it feels so alive and vibrant, more than sixty years after its publication. Do read it.

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Joe Cinque’s Consolation by Helen Garner

Kim Kingston — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 03:02:22 +0000

When Helen Garner sees accused murderer Anu Singh, she writes that Singh “raised my girl hackles in a bristle.” That is Garner’s writing in a nutshell; succinct, sincere, spare. We’ve all felt that sensation without ever voicing it, and we all know exactly what she means.

In 1997 Singh murdered her boyfriend Joe Cinque in Canberra. This book is Garner’s account of the susbsequent trial of Singh and her friend Madhavi Rao. Garner tries to make sense of the place where the law intersects and often clashes with common sense. Singh killed a young man who had done her no harm and was by all accounts a good person. Surely she deserves the most severe punishment possible? But the law says otherwise, and Garner attempts to find out why and what that says about our legal system, and what it means for Joe Cinque’s family.

The true beauty of Garner’s writing exists in the explicit acknowledgment that she doesn’t have all the answers but she will ask the questions, and she will try to exercise humanity and fairness in her responses. This is her best book, and hopefully it is some consolation to Joe Cinque’s family.

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The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson

Kim Kingston — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 03:09:14 +0000

Maggie Nelson’s aunt Jane was murdered before Nelson was born. This is Nelson’s account of the murder trial that followed, 35 years after the crime.

The parts of the books about the murder trial and the reactions of Nelson and her family to it are quite riveting, but overall this book suffers from Nelson’s habit of over sharing. Do we really need to know that she enjoys being strangled during sex? That she cried so hard for three nights after a bad breakup that her friend shoved some sleeping tablets into her hand? She writes,”I am getting the bad feeling that my friends are growing tired of me. I am growing tired of me too.”

Well Nelson, that makes three of us.

This is typical of the kind of undergrad melodrama that slides into her writing too frequently:

”A few weeks later, in what would become one of our last conversations, the man I loved told me that while I was away at the trial he had gone swimming in a lake during a lightning storm, and had there had the sudden feeling that perhaps it was our fate to get fatally struck by lightning at the same moment, and thus the whole painful mess we now found ourselves in would evaporate for us both in the same instant. As he said this I pressed the phone close to my ear, as if to imprint his voice against the clay of my brain.”

My dear Nelson, rather than imprinting his voice into the clay of your brain, you should be running a mile from this man, as he sounds like a wanker.

Nelson is at her best when writing about her family, and especially her grandfather, and all the painful shocks and absurdities of a murder trial. She could spare us more on the topic of herself and her relationships.

Maybe she just needs a few more years under her belt before she becomes a more refined and evocative writer. I really hope that happens, as she has a lot of talent.

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