Bookseller+Publisher reviewer Chris Harrington speaks to Elizabeth Stead about her new novel The Sparrows of Edward Street (UQP).
Many Australian families were adversely affected by the economic disruption after the WWII. What brought the plight of camp residents to your attention?
Being there! Though not in the year written in the novel. The Sparrows of Edward Street is a work of fiction because I had trouble remembering all of it. Some memories have been erased so I hope former inmates will forgive omissions—and additions—about camp life!
Your book details life in one particular camp in Sydney. Were there many similar camps in other states? ow long were housing campsWhen were these camps finally closed?
Sparrows is based on the NSW Housing Commission camp at Bradfield Park, Lindfield, NSW. There were similar camps I believe in other states but they were mainly for migrants.
Where did you do your research? Are there many documents still available on life in the housing camps?
Research was difficult. The NSW government was no help! The camp has remained an embarrassment to the state government. The local council historian, Joan Rowland, and my cousin Dorothy Basili were a great help. Documents were practically non-existent. I have a few photos and one or two letters written by former camp-dwellers that inspired certain characters and passages.
Aria is a very special character, both as the voice of the Sparrow family and as the ‘protector’ of Hanora and Margaret Rose. How did you develop her character?
Aria Sparrow and I are joined at the hip… We have both survived. I had no trouble developing her character and she would have had less trouble developing mine! And may I say, we are still as feisty as ever.
Both Hanora and Margaret Rose are rather overwhelmed by the events that overtake the Sparrow family, yet Aria is able to retain her sense of humour throughout. Did the use of humour in the book make it easier to tell the story of such difficult times?
Aria usually found humour in even the darkest days, and still does. To find humour in a long and arduous life has fortunately not been difficult for me. And yes, it did make the novel easier to write although I confess to a few ‘old tears’ during some passages. Age! Old people cry if you look at them sideways!
What was the last book you read and loved?
American writer John Cheever’s Collected Stories and Other Writings. After reading The Journals of John Cheever many years ago, I learned the importance of the courage to write the truth.
The Sparrows of Edward Street is published this month by UQP. Chris Harrington reviewed the novel in the March issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine, now available online here.
At its simplest, Nine Lives presents nine strongly researched profiles of the literary careers of notable Australian women writers Judith Wright, Thea Astley, Dorothy Hewett, Rosemary Dobson, Dorothy Auchterloine Green, Gwen Harwood, Jessica Anderson, Amy Witting and Elizabeth Jolley. Each of these women’s stories is engaging in itself, but more than this, Susan Sheridan draws together the writers’ experiences to explore Australian literary culture during the post-war decades. Some of these writers did not find recognition until late in their lives, and all of them juggled multiple roles while pursuing their writing, as wives and mothers, and in various other jobs to supplement their living. Interspersed with examples and excerpts of the writers’ poetry, novels and short stories, the book outlines commonalities in the struggle, and ultimate success, of a generation of women on their path to publication. I found the book provided an interesting background to the works of familiar authors, making me want to revisit and reread them. Equally, it piqued my interest in the authors whose work I am less familiar with. An appealing read for fans of the featured authors, as well as anyone with an interest in Australian literature or women’s studies.
Graduating with an impressive-sounding but amorphous arts degree early this century, Lucy Neville decides to avoid finding a real job by escaping to Mexico City. Arriving with little money and a smattering of Spanish, she needs to find a job and a place to live as well as familiarising herself with the language as spoken locally. The job is no problem: there are countless positions teaching English in this city of over 20 million people. Finding somewhere to live is another story, until she meets Octavio, tall, dark and handsome, who has a room to rent. Lucy quickly falls in love with her housemate, then with Riccardo, her boss at the school at which she is teaching. This may sound absurdly romantic but the author tells her story with such honesty and charm that you can’t help living the dilemma with her. She takes you along as she deals with public transport, shopping, the endless double entendres of the local language (almost everything has a secondary, sexual connotation), male machismo, local politics, a hilariously fraught visit by her parents and sister—‘Lucy took us to eat in a gutter on our first night here’ says Richard, her dad—and much more. Anyone who has ever been a 20-something traveller should enjoy this engaging read—think Holy Cow in Mexico.
A snowstorm causes a train to crash high in the mountains of Norway, the survivors battle their way through the snow to a remote hotel. As the temperature falls people start to die and it’s up to sleuth Hanne Wilhelmsen to figure out who the murderer is in Anne Holt’s 
Jennifer Mills’ second novel, after the accomplished debut The Diamond Anchor, is about a hitchhiker’s journey. A man of 30-ish years is heading west, back home from Sydney after a 15-year absence, including time in jail. He takes the name Frank and a photograph of ‘home’ from a charity backpack. That’s all he has, apart from memories that come interspersed with the stories of the people who pick him up and give him food, money or conversation. Mills’ talent was evident in her first book, but here it is clear she is a brilliant writer, with poetic prose that takes the reader right into the place that Frank inhabits. The novel begins with the line, ‘He goes barefoot into the meaty darkness’, and this is a perfect metaphor for the entire novel. The language is beautiful and cruel and vivid. The socks in Frank’s bag are ‘a fatty deposit’, someone’s teeth are like ‘bunched pencils’, galahs are ‘cackling fruit’. Frank’s journey is into the starkness of the outback, but it is also into his own psychological darkness. The mystery and harsh beauty of this story will appeal to a wide range of readers who enjoy a challenging novel.
