Cracking the Spine: Ten short Australian Stories and How They Were Written is a diamond that should feature on reading lists the nation over — to ensure its richness can be savoured by secondary English and tertiary Literary Studies students, thoughtful writers and all who enjoy reading and good books. It’s an insider’s view of how elegant stories are created — and so we’re offered the story and the story behind the story. How clever is that?
Editors Bronwyn Mehan and Julie Chevalier from Spineless Wonders have curated the volume beautifully and the ten stories and accompanying explanations of how they were written all make fascinating reading.
The book opens with a delectable curio as ‘An Australian short story’ is composed entirely of sentences drawn from stories by authors as diverse as Henry Lawson, Thea Astley, Beverly Farmer, Paddy O’Reilly and Frank Moorhouse. Author Ryan O’ Neill explains how his piece celebrates the Australian short story throughout its long and varied history and details his own encounter with it since he first arrived in Australia in 2004.
If I’m forced to choose a favourite piece from Cracking the Spine, it would have to be Maria Tokolander’s ‘Three Sisters’ with its Chekhovian overtones, compellingly odd characters and directions to readers that give it a theatrical air. Tokolander’s story also conjures place so superbly I feel I really must visit the roadhouse café in the marshy, isolated part of Australia where it is set.
In a Spineless Wonders online book club session on Facebook on September 11, a number of Cracking the Spine authors joined its editors and readers to discuss the work.
Here are snippets from the conversation.
Marian Matta said ‘Good Rubbish’ by Andy Kissane was a beautifully touching story that lost nothing by being written by someone who didn’t have first hand knowledge of its territory.
‘Research is a wonderful thing when combined with empathy.’
Hilary Hewitt told Patrick West that his story ‘Nhill’ had such a sense of being in the moment – in the landscape – that she was fascinated to read in his accompanying essay, ‘Writing “Nhill’: The Short Story as Still Life’, that he’d visited and revisited his story over many years.
‘The work involved in crafting a short story!’
Katie Paul said she loved ‘What I Didn’t Put in My Speech’ by Claire Aman due to its mix of real and unreal, ordinary and extraordinary.
‘Perfectly done.’
Katie also said she loved the idea behind Cracking the Spine so much, ‘I wish there were others similar. Please do another!’
Kate Liston-Mills said Madame Didion and ‘the freaking scary-arse flowers’ in Rjurik Davidson’s story ‘Twilight in Caeli-Amur’ had stayed with her and shaken her deeply.
‘I am questioning my entire reading history and its authors. I’m questioning men in general. I’m freaked out by the flowers. I’m confused as to the difference between the fantastic and magical realism. I liked the whole design of that story — the wandering into the house, wandering around, and wandering out — there’s an aloofness to it. And yet a stirring poignancy which, as I’ve said, I can’t shake off.
‘I can see that woman’s face and her dark house clearly. And I believe her that nobody ever comes in. I sure as hell wouldn’t. Not with those flowers there. And I also feel this indescribable sadness towards her and so many other women, even in my own life, whose gifts and talents have been overlooked or concealed.’
Rjurik Davidson told Kate Liston-Mills her response was what he’d been hoping for. ‘I wanted the story to be unsettling, in many ways: in terms of narrative, in terms of our perceptions about genre, in terms of our perceptions of gender.’
He also said the traditional answer about the difference between the fantastic and magic realism was, ‘Magic realism has only one significant change to the world as we know it. Fantasy is more general, though you can see from this definition that magic realism is really a subset of fantasy.’
Andy Kissane said he’d been moved by Michael Giacometti’s gut-wrenching story ‘my abbr.d life’ and by his superb essay ‘The Madness and the Method’ about navigating the pitfalls of whitefellas writing stories that deal with Indigenous people.
‘This is a story that is both ordinary and extraordinary. And such a beautifully written, honest essay.’
As writer and critic Helen Elliott wrote of Cracking the Spine in The Australian on September 13, ‘Everyone who is interested in the depth, breadth, sophistication and vitality of writing today needs this slender little book on their desk.’
I agree. Grab this rare gem.
great review Marjorie. It makes me want to read this book.