How many novels have you read featuring the Vietnam War? I’ve not read many I must say, but last year I did review Charles Hall’s Summer’s gone, and now this year I’ve read Josephine Rowe’s A loving, faithful animal. It’s a debut novel but, from its form, you can tell that Rowe is an accomplished short story writer. I have in fact read one of her short stories – from her collection, Tarcutta Wake. Unusually for me, I didn’t review it at the time. I think this is because I planned to read the whole collection, but that hasn’t happened (yet, anyhow), which is clearly my loss.
So, before I discuss the content of this novel, I should explain what I mean by this statement regarding short stories and its form. For a start, it’s a multi-voice novel. On its own, this is not unusual, but here the voices are also in different persons, which is not unheard of either, really. However, added to this is the fact that the chapters (or “stories”), particularly “Breakwall”, could be read as stand-alone pieces. To make the novel out of these pieces, they are linked via character, and there’s an overall chronological narrative arc to them, but they also remain little jewels in themselves. There’s real skill here, in the way Rowe juggles her voices, perspectives, stories to create a very satisfying whole.
Now, to discuss the novel itself. It comprises six stories, starting in second person with Ruby, whom we come to realise is the younger daughter of the book’s central family. It then progresses through four stories told from different third person limited perspectives – Ruby’s mother Evelyn, her father Jack, her uncle and father’s brother Les or Tetch, and her sister Lani – before returning to Ruby’s second person voice to conclude. The story is one of a family broken by the father’s ongoing trauma (PTSD) following his Vietnam War experience. It’s a devastating story showing how such trauma can play out, resulting in domestic violence, dividing loyalties and causing splits in families.
… she did not drive away …
The novel opens on New Year’s Eve, around 1990. The family has struggled on for some time. Jack has been unable to retain good employment, going in and out of rehab, with Evelyn always drawing him back, wanting their relationship and the family to work. But, every time she takes him back, she loses something too, particularly in terms of the respect of her elder daughter. As the novel opens, it’s New Year’s Eve, and Jack has gone, for good this time it seems, after something unspeakably brutal – the full details are never, fortunately, given – has happened to the family’s pet dog, Belle, the titular “loving faithful animal”. Except, as you’d expect, there’s more to the title than this. Evelyn, too, is “a loving faithful animal”, as in her way is Ruby and, perhaps we could also argue, Jack’s half-brother, Les/Tetch. He had escaped the war by “getting rid of his own fingers” and now hovers on the edge of the family, wanting to keep an eye on them, wanting his brother to be okay, but wanting too some family for himself.
What I enjoyed most about this book, besides its tackling this important subject, is its empathetic but unsentimental portrayal of its characters. Evelyn’s loyalty (her faithfulness) is shown to be both admirable and stupid. We see the catch-22, damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t nature of her situation, with the added element of a young girl having made her bed, that is, having married against her parents’ advice, and now having to lie in it:
But she could never quite bring herself to. Run out on him like that. And it was never as simple as money. It was never as simple as pride, because she’s not sure she’s never had much of that either. Or if she does, it hasn’t turned out to be worth much, not when it comes right down to it. (II “The Coastal Years”)
Life is cruel, particularly when stubbornness and lack of forgiveness face off against each other. Anyhow, we also ache for Jack who can’t escape his past, and nor “get a handle on” the future, so leaves rather than inflict more cruelty. We see and understand Lani’s decision to reject it all and escape into a future on her own, while Ruby stays determinedly loyal. Every decision though comes at a cost.
It’s not an easy book to read, and not just because of the subject matter. Rowe is not the sort of writer who wants to tell a simple narrative. She wants to convey emotions, psychology, motivations, not just actions, because these are the stuff of life. And this requires a particular sort of writing which, for Rowe here, is a sort of minimalist, sometimes disjointed, sometimes lyrical style:
This is Exhibit A in the Museum of Possible Futures, the life that might have rolled out smooth as a bolt of satin, if she had just swung her slender legs up into that beautiful car and driven as fast as she could in the opposite direction, leaving the man with the camera far behind. Your father, he could keep the photograph.
But she did not drive away. Instead she sold the car and spent every night of her life trying to lead your father out of the jungle, out of the mud, away from the cracks of invisible rifles, strange lights through the trees. (I “A Loving, Faithful Animal”)
There’s more of course – isn’t there always? – including little running motifs involving cicadas and panthers, and Tetch whom I’ve barely mentioned, but I’ll close here. This is the sort of book that I’d love to see in next year’s awards shortlists, for its writing and for its fierce, authentic evocation of the lasting effects of war. I wonder if I will.
Lisa (ANZLitLovers) was also impressed by the book.
Josephine Rowe
A loving, faithful animal
St Lucia: UQP, 2016
200pp.
ISBN: 9780702253966
Whispering Gums 
Thanks for the link, Sue. I’m so glad you liked this too, and I think it deserves more attention than it’s had.
Yes, I do too Lisa. It’s an excellent read isn’t it.
You’re right, Sue, the Vietnam War seems to have gone largely forgotten in literature. Perhaps because it’s seen only as an American-Vietnamese affair.
Maybe, Debbie, or because it was so controversial? Though you’d think that would make it more interesting to writers.
Speaking of novels about the Vietnam War, my daughter-in-law has just given me a copy of ‘The Sympathizer’ by first-time Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen. Published in 2015, it won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Award for Excellence in Fiction. It was also a finalist for the 2016 PEN/Faulkner Award. I don’t know why I hadn’t heard of it, but Annie (my D-I-L) says it’s wonderful. The blurb describes it as ‘a gripping espionage novel’ and the Financial Times review calls it ‘A fierce novel written in a refreshingly high style and charged with intelligent rage.’ I only started reading it tonight so can’t give you my opinion yet, but it certainly sounds like it’s worth reading.
Oh thanks Teresa. It does sound interesting. I’d love you to come back and let me know what you think when you’ve read it, if you can remember to.
The form you describe is one I particularly like but I have a lot of problems with novels about the Vietnam War, which is still (and always be) very fresh in my memory.
One book that I did read and like is a short story collection about the war from the North Vietnamese point of view: The Stars, The Earth, The River: Short Stories by Le Minh Khue. I didn’t have the expectation that she would be seeing the war as I saw it so it was easier for me to accept her point of view.
Maybe looking at it from an Australian point of view would help me get past the feeling that I own this war. I sound like those geezers at the gym who are slightly older than I and are always going on about how the younger generation doesn’t understand their war (WW2). Ugh…
Thanks Martha, loved your comment. This book doesn’t say much about the war, except in the middle story in which Jack moves between the past, or memories of, and the present. Mainly it’s the psychological aftermath. I was a teenager through most of the war, went to a girls school and had a much younger brother who was early teens when it ended, so I remember it, the marches and controversy, but I don’t feel as emotionally connected as you clearly do.
Thanks, WG. This sounds like a terrific book to me. I’ll be looking out for it.
Funnily, I was thinking of you as I wrote this post Sara. I think you’d like it.
It’s occurred to me after I commented that there’s more than one parallel in this book with West Block, where I did try to have each of the ‘chapters’ work on its own but also, prism-like, connect with the others, one of which – ‘Catherine Takes Charge’ – deals with the war in its last days. An exciting structure, not to mention challenge, for an author, and from the sound of it Rowe has managed it exceptionally well.
Ah yes, Sara. Good point. I know you like to play with structure. But yes, I think she’s managed it really well. I’d love to hear what your writerly eyes think.
Sounds fabulous! Will have to put it on my ‘to read’ list. One novel set in Vietnam during the war that I’ve read not long ago is Mark Dapin’s R&R. It’s not for the faint-hearted, lots of unpleasant male characters from Oz, but it sounds extremely authentic and I loved reading it.
Oh thanks Annette. I’ve heard of a small number of Vietnam War novels, but hadn’t come across that one. Thanks for the heads up.
Sounds like a well done, powerful book. I’ve only read one book, In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien that features Vietnam flashbacks. Have never read anything that took place during the war. Will keep this one in mind, especially because I find the structure you describe intriguing.
Yes Stefanie, I think the wrong (writing, I meant) in this one would appeal to you.
I do like that novel/short story meld and think it can give a lot of flexibility to a book. Over here we tend to forget that Australia was involved in the Vietnam war. The US wanted Britain to be involved but Harold Wilson had to good sense to steer clear.
Yes I do too for the same reason Ian.
I’m not sure whether to be grateful or insulted that you Brits tend to forget our involvement in that war!
No insult intended!
Thanks, Ian… Not that I thought there was!
I love this review, Sue—thank you. I haven’t read the novel yet but I am a huge fan of Josephine’s short fiction collections.
Incidentally, your review makes me wonder whether there are some parallels between this and Michelle Michau-Crawford’s 2016 collection Leaving Elvis. Have you read that?
Thanks Amanda. Yes I realise that I need to read more of her short fiction. As for Leaving Elvis, no I haven’t but it sounds like I should.
I think you would like it, Sue. Michelle is a strong new talent, and the title story won the Elizabeth Jolley ABR Prize a few years ago.
Oh dear, then, sounds like I’ll have to add it to the list, doesn’t it!