Reaching Tin River

In this impeccably controlled novel, prize-winning Australian author Thea Astley combines her irrepressible good humor and wry view of people and the world, telling an offbeat story of feisty characters in search of their spiritual "centers." Main character Belle grows up on her grandfather's marginally successful sheep farm, Perjury Plains, "outside a lost townlet called Drenchings." Her assertive but impractical mother Bonnie works as a drummer in an all-girls' band, playing gigs at local church halls and sheep-farming conventions, her absent, trumpet-playing father having sought his own career in the United States.Sent to boarding school at the age of seven, this lonely but remarkably self-sufficient child grows up longing to know what it is like to have a family, a solid, emotional center in her life-"I want love," she says. As Astley follows her from her birth, at which her grandmother "only just managed to intercept grandfather as he dialed the vet," through her childhood and eventual marriage, we see Belle choosing friends, forming relationships, and making decisions, always attempting to find someone, real or imagined, who will serve as "a center in which [she] can merge." Humorous but pithy observations fill this novel as feisty Belle, Bonnie, and their friends make do the best way they can, always hoping that happiness is just around the corner, if only they can free themselves from their present circumstances. Astley astutely manipulates the tone and point of view to match various stages of Belle's life. Belle's flippant and youthfully cynical point of view as a child changes gracefully to a more serious and conventional point of view when she becomes an adult, and to a controlled magic realism when she fantasizes about a character she is researching in her role as an archivist. Unique descriptions abound: Belle describes her mother's alternative lifestyle as "like living in a Longfellow ballad," and, when she is tired of her husband's smiles, devoutly wishes that "Seb's teeth would go black." Filled with literary delights, high spirits, and much good sense, this is a novel to savor. Mary Whipple

Set in rural Australia, Thea Astley's quick witted, strong willed, rebellious and ambitious female character, Belle tells an ironic story of her childhood and her obsession to a dead man. While researching the archives of a middle-of-nowhere town called Jericho Flats, she tries to make her path cross that of the long-dead, Gaden Lockyer."I am compiling a research diary on Gaden Lockyer, a private project since the research on Jericho Flats finished some time ago. I am involved in correspondence with the historical societies of at least six country towns, parliamentary record departments, three coastal newspapers whose morgues I wish to mine and, on a more personal level, an eighty-year-old shearer from Dingo with eyewitness anecdotes."Her mother is a drummer in an all-women band. Her father is a professional trumpet player who has left Belle's life ever since she was a foetus.From a rather hastened and early marriage, Belle and Seb eventually gains a cold relationship. Soon, Seb starts attracting other women to go in bed with him. Belle calls it the "marital schism".I find the short and vague sentences of what I considered as the major parts of the plot quite intelligent but sometimes irritating. An example is, the relationship between Belle and Seb wasn't written as important as Belle's obsession with Gaden Lockyer, that is very unique with authors because courting is usually a major focus of most authors."Seb and I began a relationship of sorts. He takes me to plays and concerts and gallery openings and concerts and gallery openings and lobster dinners at the Gold Coast where my virginity submits at last to his fifteen years seniority at these matters. Thinking I might at this point find my missing centre we achieve a quiet marriage attended by four other archivists and six cataloguers. Mother attended the wedding but in a plaster cast. She had broken her leg falling from the roof of her bush hut as she cleaned the gutters."However, after rereading some sections over again, I managed to capture the storyline again. It is a well written Australian colloquial novel that attracts the reader from the first paragraph to the last.I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a good read and doesn't mind a strange plot, a unique style of writing, and difficult obscene descriptions.