Michael Sala has written a novel about a dysfunctional family who move to Newcastle to restore not only a house but also a broken relationship. Maryanne had left her husband, Roy, and taken the children to live with her mother in Sydney. However when twelve months later Roy arrived to ask Maryanne to join him in Newcastle Maryanne tentatively agreed. Teenage daughter, Freyer, and eight year old Daniel were not happy about this relocation but Maryanne thought that she needed to try and restore her relationship with Roy and bring the family back together.
The story is primarily told through the eyes of Maryanne and Freyer with Roy ever present in the background. Newcastle also plays a major factor in the novel as the author provides descriptions of the streets, beaches, cliffs and general landscape in which the characters go about their lives in this city. The novel is set in the year 1989 and the author uses world and local events of the time such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Tianamen Square Massacre and the murder of a fourteen year old girl in Newcastle as discussion points within the novel. This was also the year of the Newcastle earthquake with the destruction of parts of the city providing an analogy with the deterioration and destruction of a relationship.
Not only does the relationship between Maryanne and Roy deteriorate but the impact of this relationship causes Freyer to experiment with outside, and often dangerous, influences to try to achieve independence from her the family.
As the story unfolds we discover why Maryanne initially left Roy and watch as aspects of Roy's character are revealed. This is a well written novel that kept me wanting to keep reading to discover more about the characters and the inevitable outcome. I suspect that it will become a very popular book with book clubs.
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