A story of fathers and sons, mothers and their children, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice is a beautifully wrought novel of silences, hidden truths and two men separated by time, knowledge and understanding.
Frank has taken refuge in his long-deceased grandparents’ beach shack, escaping from a broken relationship and the man he his afraid of becoming. Decades earlier, a young Leon tries to make sense of his parents’ tragic life as they eke out a living in their post-Second World War cake shop in Parramatta on the outskirts of Sydney.
The two men are connected but it takes half the book to confirm their relationship.
The impact of war
War, violence and its terrible aftermath play a crucial role in After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, a quote taken from The Book of Kings and the biblical story of royal succession, war, destruction and regeneration.
Frank, to his horror, inexplicably struck out against his (now former) girlfriend. Alone, with two chickens, the creaking of sugar cane and the clattering of night-time visitors on a tin roof for company, he attempts to evaluate at least something of his life and early memories – the death of his mother, the estrangement from his alcoholic, whoring father.
But even in this isolation, violence pervades: a young girl has gone missing from the local town. When Sal, daughter of his neighbours Bob and Vicky, also goes missing, Frank becomes the main suspect.
A generation earlier, Leon confronts his own demons, conscripted as he is to fight in Vietnam, essentially following in his father’s footsteps. Just ten years earlier, Roman had joined the Australian Army and the war in Korea, a man driven to repay the country that had taken him in from the horrors of the Holocaust.
Like Roman, Leon returns a broken man, whose nightmares are of dead civilians, dead Viet Cong and dead comrades. The baking of wedding cakes and sculpting sugared figurines pale into insignificance.
Cause and effect - the choices we make
Brutish actions from men who are not brutes. As we weave, chapter by chapter, between Frank and Leon, Evie Wyld refuses to judge, pass comment or even provide answers. It is what it is – cause and effect. Each man must live by the actions he chooses. And whilst Leon is by far the more likeable of the two, it is his emotional collapse and domestic indifference that impact on Frank at a later date.
Intense relationships and intense people populate After the Fire, a Still Small Voice. Bob and Vicky lost their first-born to leukemia; Leon’s mother is only complete with her Roman. Neither Leon nor Frank can face their problems or find answers – they simply run away or find solace elsewhere.
Roman flew to the family coop, but was lucky enough to have a wife and soulmate who hunted him down. Leon lost his too, too soon. And Frank destroyed that which he had. All three men turned inward, but in spite of all, they retain their humility.
Accomplished, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice is a wonderful debut novel. It’s not a loud, shout-it-from-the-rooftops book. Instead, Wyld writes quietly, pensively, wringing out wry humour (young Sal and her carrot doll), elegiac descriptive passages of death in Vietnam or simply the angst and uncertainties of Frank as he is unjustly accused of the young girl’s disappearance.
It’s a quite beautiful read and one that slowly creeps up on you. The novel was the recipient of a Betty Trasker Award and won the 2009 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. It was also listed for the 2011 IMPAC DUBLIN literary award.
A dual national, Evie Wyld was born on her family’s sugar farm in New South Wales but has lived most her adult life in southeast London.
Source:
Evie Wyld, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (Vintage, 2009)
Keith Lawrence - Published writer of articles in magazines, newspapers and websites, predominantly on culture, alongside ghostwriter/editor/copywriter.
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