Courtesy: Margaret River Press
When Western Australian writer Craig Silvey set his coming-of-age novel Jasper Jones in the 1960s I was a bit surprised, as Silvey himself did not grow up in that era. I’m not so surprised, though, about Charles Hall’s debut novel Summer’s gone as Hall did grow up in the 1960s. The novel is, from my reading of the brief author biography, somewhat autobiographical, as debut novels often are: both Hall and his main character played guitar in bands, hitch-hiked across Australia, worked in labouring jobs and ended up studying at university. This, though, doesn’t mean the story is Hall’s story. It simply tells us that Hall wrote of a milieu he knows – a wise thing to do!
Summer’s gone is a part-mystery, part-coming-of-age narrative, and is told first person by Nick. It focuses on his relationship with two sisters, Helen and Alison, and another young man, Mitch, with whom he’d formed a folk band in 1960s Perth. The novel starts, however, in Melbourne in 1967 with Nick finding 20-year-old Helen dead (or dying) on their kitchen floor. What happened to her, why it happened, and Nick’s feelings of guilt about it, form the novel’s plot. The theme, though, is something else, it’s about
the trouble with dwelling too much on the past – sometimes you remember other things as well, things you don’t necessarily want to think about.
Except, of course, we do often need to dwell on the past if we haven’t resolved it, we need to think, as Nick does, about the things we did, didn’t do, or might have done differently. We need, in fact, as Nick has come to realise, “to say goodbye to things. And perhaps even to understand.”
To tell his story, Nick slips between the 1960s, the mid 1970s, the 1980s, and sometime around the present from which he is looking back. Hall handles these time-shifts well: it’s not difficult to know where you are, and it effectively replicates the way we often approach the past, that is, in fits and starts as we put together what happened.
It’s an engaging story. Nick, the young version anyhow, is a rather naive and not well-educated – but not unintelligent – young man. He’s not wise in the ways of the world, but he’s decent, and prepared to give things a go. He has a poor relationship with his Perth-based mother, and his only real adult role model is his uncle Clem in Melbourne. The relationship between the four young people is nicely evoked, though because it’s a first person story, the other three characters are only developed as far as Nick understands them, and Nick is not always the most perceptive person. I found this a little frustrating – I wanted to know the other characters more – but I suppose it’s fair enough given the narrative voice chosen.
What gives this book its greatest interest is the social history. Many of the main stories of the period are worked into the narrative – abortion, and the horrors resulting from lack of legalisation; the Vietnam War, conscription, draft-dodging, and the physical and psychological damage experienced by soldiers. Nick also spends time in a hippie commune, and other news events like the Poseidon bubble and crash, the beginnings of women’s liberation, and the release of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album also get a mention. If you lived through this era, the novel provides an enjoyable wander down memory lane. It reminds us of the hopes and ideals of a generation which felt free to explore life and love, to rebel against the constraints of their elders, even though this freedom wasn’t always all it seemed to promise. I did feel, however, that Hall could have left the social history to this era. The references to Chernobyl and mesothelioma started to feel a little forced, and not really necessary to the plot, even though the mesothelioma issue is used to tighten the noose around one character just that little bit more.
Hall’s dialogue is realistic, and gives flavour to the era, and I did enjoy his descriptions of place – of Perth suburbs, and Melbourne, of travelling the Nullarbor and of country Victoria. These descriptions are kept to a minimum, but are just enough to breathe life into the scene.
Early in the novel, Hall refers to chaos theory and the butterfly effect, to the idea that “a minor detail has the power to change everything”. That’s probably true but I’m not sure it tells us anything we don’t already know! There are many minor details in our lives, and we could go mad worrying about which is the one that will (or did) change everything. Fortunately, I think Nick eventually agrees.
This is not a difficult novel, but it is warm, readable, and sings to us of summers past when the world seemed golden, but when in fact there was, as there always is, much more to it than that.
Lisa at ANZLitLovers enjoyed the book also for its evocation of the era.
Charles Hall
Summer’s gone
Witchcliffe: Margaret River Press, 2014
288pp.
ISBN: 9780987561541
(Review copy supplied by Margaret River Press)
Whispering Gums 
Thanks for the mention, Sue, I’m glad you enjoyed it too.
I’d be interested to see a review by someone younger than us. I don’t think either of us have been influenced by nostalgia, but I wonder if younger readers will engage with it in the same way?
A pleasure Lisa. My review was delayed about three weeks by the fact that I got to page 112 and then found the next page was 129! So I had to wait for a second copy to come, which it did within a week but by then of course I’d started something else. I think I remembered it all.
Yes, I agree it would be good to hear from younger readers. It’s hard to be objective (if we ever can be of course) about an era you know well … though as you say I don’t think nostalgia affected our reviews. I enjoyed reading about an era I know but it didn’t really engender nostalgia I think, partly because the story keeps moving, and shifting time frames so you don’t get a chance to wallow!
I hate catching up on reviews, because, yes, I’ve started on something else, and the freshness of my first response gets lost. (I don’t always stay with that first response, I often write whole paragraphs about it and then ditch it, but I like to express it, it’s part of my reading experience).
I found Hall’s book interesting because my Vietnam years experience was so different. I was surrounded by the Vietnam controversy and pulled in all directions. My ex was a nasho, I had friends and cousins-by-marriage who went to Vietnam and my sister was very active in the anti-war movement. So Hall’s experience of Vietnam being so ‘off-stage’ was a wake-up call to me that although everyone I knew then and now cared about it passionately one way or the other, there must have been many people who didn’t know or didn’t care. Which is why the wretched war went on so long, I suppose, it wasn’t a vote changer for enough people.
Yes, I remember your telling me about your ex. I must say I was very aware of it but it didn’t touch me closely. My brother is 6 1/2 years younger than I, and my closest friends didn’t have brothers (or had brothers who were younger). I only had one male cousin of the age, a year younger, but I rarely saw him. I went to a YMCA social dance group which was attended by a real mix of people, uni students, bank tellers, other office workers, plumbers, etc, but I don’t recollect any of the young men there being called up. So, while I was aware of it politically, I really, surprisingly, had no personal contact.
My husband of course was of the era, and we talked about it later, but I didn’t know him then.
It clearly wasn’t a vote changer as you say, and, back then, we (those of the most affected age) couldn’t vote!
Oooh, yes, that inability to vote still rankles. I wasn’t able to vote for Whitlam in 1972, and Fraser stole half the worth of my first vote in 1975. I have maintained my rage to the last!
Fraser did turn out though to be a very interesting man … but yes, it was irritating back then, especially when we had to share our first vote with all those youngsters (like my baby sister!)
What rankled was the injustice of sending conscripted men off to die in a war, when they could not vote for or against it. It was deliberate, they could have made the conscription age 21 and Fraser (Minister for Defence 1969-71) and his cronies didn’t.
Oh yes, fair point too … though people being sent off to war without any rights or say wasn’t new. Fortunately though we’ve gradually gained more and more rights, haven’t we, enabling more of a say. Did Fraser ever reconsider his position on that I wonder?
I don’t know. He reinvented himself on all kinds of things. Interesting that Mannix (I just reviewed the Niall bio) was famously anti conscription in WW1 but did not oppose it in WW2 when Australia was thought to be under threat, So his position was not as a matter of principal against all conscription, it was about whether the war was justified or not.
He sure did make some surprisingly positive contributions to some important debates in his late life. Interesting re Mannix. When you move away form principal it can be a slippery slope, and yet rigidity is not always appropriate either. Difficult questions.
I enjoyed your review but I think I enjoyed the comment conversation between you and Lisa even more!
Haha, Stefanie … I can live with that!
Not to say your review wasn’t good, I hope I didn’t leave you with that impression!
Oh no you didn’t. But I love the fact that you read the comments and enjoyed them. I’ll take the compliment that a good conversation must mean at least an interesting review!
Gosh, Sue … it rather looks as if I must give reading this at least a try, eh ?
It might just break your reading drought, M-R – and it certainly would interest you with your WA and peripatetic background.
The period, too … Yes, I shall definitely have to have a go at it. Thanks, as ever !
Yes, the period too … come back here and let us know if you do locate it and read it, M-R.
I shall, if I do. If you hear nothing more on the subject, you know what happened …
Will I? There could be all sorts of possibilities, some I’d rather not mention. I think you’d better report now any which way!!
[grin]
You girls blow me away. Loved reading your conversations
You girls blow me away. Loved reading all this stuff.
Ah, so it’s YOU! Wasn’t sure which Helen until I came to my admin area. You made my day, sweet sister.
Why thank you Helen … it’s lovely that people read the conversations too.
Pingback: Love and Death, or History and Mystery | A Lifetime Is Required