The narrative opens with little Rod Hall, squashed behind the piano with his siblings and widowed mother, scared out of his wits while bombs fall on his home town in England. While the family is terrified, his stoical, though headache-prone, mother manages to distract them from the raids by sharing photographs and golden reminiscences of Kangaroo Valley in far-off Australia. Rodney Hall’s evocative and moving book Popeye Never Told You: Childhood Memories of the War won me over with its disarming yet simple prose. The hardship and frugality of the period is conveyed through a series of tender vignettes, recounted from the perspective of the inquisitive youngest member of the family. Everything, from the small flat where the Halls live (above the landlord’s garage and workshop) to the backyard where they play (the garage roof ), is recounted from the eye level of a six-year-old, albeit with the fleeting attention span of a six-year-old. Several of the accounts are merely impressions or feelings that surface in little Rod’s mind. They are as often perceptive observations as they are the clumsy bumbling of a lonely little boy.
As the breadwinner, Rod’s mother is absent during the day, leaving the children free to roam the neighbourhood, especially during the stretches of school holidays. Led by his whip-sharp older brother Mike, who can outwit local tough boys with clever ‘inventions’ and sheer courage, little Rod and the slightly older Di explore the countryside, the abandoned flour mill and even scrape together enough money to buy train tickets to the next town (although, amusingly, they have insufficient funds for the return trip). Throughout, the narrative resonates with the heartbreak of a little boy who knows his father only through other peoples’ memories and a solitary photograph. Rod searches his reflection for a sign of his father’s existence, but finds only tears. Reading Popeye made me return to some of Rodney Hall’s earlier books; Just Relations won the Miles Franklin in 1982 and Captivity Captive the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award in 1988. I have recollections of frightening landscapes, murder and monstrous women, all described in lustrous prose. Lustrous, there’s a word the young Rod would have noted in his autograph book; to roll around in his mouth and imagine; to use later. We are the grateful beneficiaries of that autograph book; that early formed love of language.
Barbara Cullen is a former CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association. This review first appeared in the May/June issue of Bookseller+Publisher, now online here.
Publishing assistant at Bookseller+Publisher Andrew Wrathall resisted telling us about the books he loves for some time, but we squeezed it out of him and this is what he said.
