Wimmera by Mark Brandi

Set in 1989, in rural Victoria, best friends Ben and Fab spend their days yabbying, playing cricket and wishing for the latest sneakers. What’s not talked about is the presence of domestic violence or the fact that a newcomer to town frightens both boys.

The novel didn’t work for me for a number of reasons. Wimmera is positioned as a coming-of-age crime story (an Australian Stand By Me?). Yes, there is a crime – in fact, multiple crimes. Although each crime is carefully plotted, it was all too much and the final part of the story was rushed and uneven as a result. Furthermore, the voices of the boys missed the mark – their discussions about pornography and masturbation did not ring true and whilst these elements were used to provide contrast with other parts of the plot, they were gratuitous. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that having 11 year-olds look at pornography in one chapter, while they’re groomed in the next chapter, would be traumatic for some readers.

2/5 Needs to come with a raft of trigger warnings.

I received my copy of Wimmera from the publisher, Hachette Australia, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed Wimmera. It was so well-written, and I thought that the story was fantastic. Even though the topic was quite confronting and disturbing, I was hooked to every page. I look forward to reading more books from this great author.

Set in a small town in rural Victoria near the Grampian mountains, Wimmera tells the coming-of-age story of two boys, Fab and Ben, whose friendship bonds them like brothers. Playing cricket in the backyard and going yabbying down the local creek, they support each other when either of them needs it: standing united against bullies, providing a safe shelter when Fab’s father has been drinking too much, discussing their changing bodies and having childhood crushes on girls or Fab’s mother. Until the day a newcomer arrives in town and their innocence is shattered forever.

With his debut novel, Brandi combines two genres I love: a good coming-of-age story and a murder mystery. The two boys are likeable larrikins, facing the age-old and timeless problems of kids growing up in a remote Australia country town. As a mother of a boy, it was impossible not to feel maternal towards them! A large part of the book is set in the eighties, and there are some classic Australian elements in the story that will bring back many a reader’s childhood memories: the ageless game of backyard cricket, for example, each boy striving to emulate their sporting heroes, which are all well-known names in Australian sporting history. Brandi sets a vivid, atmospheric scene, and I could picture it all very well: the dust, the heat, the flies and two boys drudging down the hill with their fishing nets and bait to catch some yabbies. And whilst both boys’ childhood is far from idyllic – Fab has a violent alcoholic father whilst Ben’s is somewhat remote and disinterested – their friendship usually sees them through.

There is a melancholic and bleak thread running through the story that has become a characteristic of some Australian crime novels and perhaps emulates the hardship faced by people living in remote locations with extreme climates and difficult economic situations. But Brandi takes it one step further, introducing a dark and sinister element which will set the story on its inevitable path of self-destruction. Be warned: there are some dark themes here. Domestic violence, racism, bullying, sexual abuse, suicide and murder, and a predator so depraved that he will change the boys’ lives forever. Whist Brandi is not shy at exploring some issues, he merely hints at others, which worked really well for me, as sometimes the things left to one’s imagination are more chilling than those spoken out loud. What starts as a happy-go-lucky tale of two boys growing up, soon takes on a worrying note, and I was terrified of what would happen to Ben. What didn’t work so well for me was the dual timeline, which abruptly changes mid-book and takes the story in a different direction. I was so invested in the first part, that I found it very difficult to change perspective. And the end – well, no spoilers, but it simply broke my heart! There were perhaps a few things that could have been explained a bit more to bring all the threads together, but generally I thought it was a gripping albeit very dark read.

Wimmera is a dark and melancholy coming-of-age story / murder mystery from a talented new voice in Australian crime fiction. Incorporating some iconic Australian elements, the story is like time-travel back to the eighties, capturing the quintessential rural Australian spirit of the time. With some very dark elements running through the story, it may not appeal to all readers, but I found it a gripping and haunting read and am looking forward to reading more from this author in future.

Book blurb...
SMALL TOWN. BIG SECRET.
An unforgettable debut that brings the darkness in an Australian country town vividly to life, as it slowly reveals its devastating secrets.
In the long, hot summer of 1989, Ben and Fab are best friends.
Growing up in a small country town, they spend their days playing cricket, yabbying in local dams, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab's dad hits him or how the sudden death of Ben's next-door neighbour unsettled him. Almost teenagers, they already know some things are better left unsaid.
Then a newcomer arrived in the Wimmera. Fab reckoned he was a secret agent and he and Ben staked him out. Up close, the man's shoulders were wide and the veins in his arms stuck out, blue and green. His hands were enormous, red and knotty. He looked strong. Maybe even stronger than Fab's dad. Neither realised the shadow this man would cast over both their lives.
Twenty years later, Fab is still stuck in town, going nowhere but hoping for somewhere better. Then a body is found in the river, and Fab can't ignore the past any more.
WIMMERA is the 2016 Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger (UK).

My thoughts…
I knew this book would haunt me from the beginning, I just did not comprehend how or why. Now I know!
The language (very strong - a male point of view, including that of an adolescent boy) was an issue for me in the beginning, but I fell into the story and still enjoyed the read. (If ‘enjoy’ can be used with the themes in this tale!!) The subject matter is dark but sometimes such matters must be discussed and fiction is a safe place to do that.
The Author handled the revelations of the two boys very well, leaving the reader to interpret the behaviours and actions without having to be too explicit.
Congratulations to this debut Australian author, Mark Brandi. This well-plotted tale lets the reader see how evil can be so pervasive and affect the lives of innocent children, but also how true friendship can alter your life forever.
If you like reading stories that will stay with you for days, put this onto you’re to be read list.

It sure feels like it’s been a long wait for Wimmera, Mark Brandi’s debut novel, to finally hit the shelves. I’m a sucker for crime fiction in rural settings in any case, but when an unpublished manuscript is set in the Victorian region neighbouring my own and finds itself the winner of the prestigious Debut Dagger by the UK Crime Writers Association? Well, clear the to-read pile! And so, a long 8 months have passed since the Dagger announcement and I’ve finally got my grubby hands on a copy.

Brandi has delivered a compelling, yet deeply unsettling, novel in his debut. The narrative unfolds in three parts; each more unsettling than the last. In fact the narrative progresses much like the clouds that billow and rupture over the stony face of the Grampians and across the Wimmera plains in the intriguing set-up to Wimmera’s dark secret. The winds of this story begin in the north (with carefree boyhood friendship and backyard cricket), shift south-west (towards battles with social and economic capital), and finally settle in the south (with a crescendo as messy as the aftermath of a storm).

In an effort to avoid spoilers I won’t go into great detail about what unfolds, only to say that Wimmera handles the topic of child sexual assault and its rippling damage. It does so in way that explores how such criminal activity furtively invades homes and families and places it in a shifting context of understanding that matures over the timeline of the narrative.

As is clear in the eponymous title, the rural setting of Wimmera is critical to its telling. The characters are of their setting and of their time, with clear geographic and social indicators placed throughout for those with enough local familiarity to recognise without alienating city-dwelling and international readers alike. The active gold mine, meat-bound livestock, granite outcrops and a patchwork of ‘yellow’ (presumably wheat- and barley-cropped) paddocks easily distinguishes the rural Victorian setting of Wimmera for this Mallee-girl (in fact I swear I caught the familiar stench of sheep shit and lanolin early on).

As a small side-note that is entirely influenced by my own life experience growing up in a town of 800 people, I really wish that Stawell had either been explicitly named earlier in the book, or not at all. The characterisation of the setting was sophisticated enough that it could have been a fictional township, and I was a little thrown to discover that Ben and Fab were in fact in Stawell, which to me has always been a ‘big’ town (everything is relative)! Once Stawell was named (about half way through the book), I had to re-orient myself a little, having imagined a town more the size of Dimboola to that point.

I will admit that early over-peppering of not-so-subtle pop-culture references (The Wonder Years and the A Team on the television) in an effort to set the scene from a time perspective had me reaching for the nostalgia sick-bag, but this was quickly overcome as more restrained hints (chocolate mousse with chopped up nuts on top, gender roles in family settings) came to the fore. As the novel progresses, Brandi ratchets up the narrative tension with alternating time-periods, during which these hints are cleverly executed to avoid any confusion (e.g. the introduction of a Sudanese character places certain scenes firmly in a contemporary setting).

Brandi has a finely-tuned understanding of the complexities of being a young man in a rural setting. His writing of this experience is perceptive and captures small details that enrich the telling of his characters’ stories. One of my favourite moments was when Ben sees his dad in a suit for the first (and only) time: “It was navy blue and it made him look like the prime minister…”. He likewise captures dialogue in adult characters so true to life that at times it feels like you might just be leaning on the end of the bar in the pub eavesdropping on the regulars.

While eleven-year-old classic-country-kid Ben is the primary focus of the first part of the novel - and remains central to the secret that compels us forward - it is Fab that comes through as the strongest voice and character. As the only Italian boy in a small rural town, Fab is a true outsider, affording Brandi more opportunities to reflect the changing (or not-so-changing) sociocultural landscape over time. It is refreshing to read rural-set crime with genuine cultural diversity. The diversity we read here is not superficial, and never strays into cliche.

Speaking of diversity, it’s important to acknowledge Brandi’s careful and deliberate telling of women in this story. While the women of Wimmera are largely victims (a young suicide, a victim of domestic violence, objects in porn magazines, a ’hot’ relief teacher named in a Freudian vein and subjected to the young male gaze, an enslaved publican’s wife), they are not written so for gratuitous reasons. Each is represented sensitively as a comment on the social setting, and no detail is outlined without purpose. The seemingly innocuous correction of ‘Miss’ to ‘Ms’, for example, subtly exposes a shift. This isn’t an explicit theme of the book, but is a subtle undercurrent that didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated by this reader.

I suspect some reviews may call out the ending as a little dissatisfying, but the messy way in which this narrative peaks is so true to the reality of life (and criminal justice) that I wouldn’t have it any other way. Indeed the crescendo leaves the reader in no doubt that Wimmera sits both on the ‘literary’ end of the crime fiction spectrum and firmly in the ‘noir’ camp. The symbolic elements that finally draw together as this book goes on are really gratifying from a literary perspective (e.g. the skinning of the rabbit, etc), and those questions left unanswered are done so to great effect.

This is a really solid read that gets better as it goes on. Believe me, as the tension rises you’ll feel this one right in the guts. Be prepared to feel genuinely tense (and a little nauseous) as the complex knot of this small town’s secret is unravelled. I’m already looking forward to more from Brandi, and hoping it will be in the form of more top-notch rural literary noir.