Publication Date: 1st August 2024
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Evie Wyld is just simply a great writer!
This book is a haunting read that is so beautifully and evocatively written the characters and the feelings you have whilst reading it stay with you for a long time. That feels like a cliché to write but it is absolutely true!
The structure of the piece centres around Hannah and her partner Max. The sections are entitled ‘Before’ which explores the relationship of the two protagonists, ‘After’ in which we experience the death of Max who then proceeds to haunt the flat he lived in with Hannah in London. There are also sections entitled ‘Then’ which flashback to Hannah’s childhood in rural Australia. We learn of Hannah’s past and meet her troubled family. Uncle Tone, her mother and older sister Rachel all live together on The Echoes, land that itself is troubled with the past. It used to be the site of a residential school for indigenous children where they were subject to mistreatment and abuse.
The ghosts of this trauma seem to haunt the land also and yet it can also be a place of great beauty and tranquillity for Hannah, yet as a reader equipped with the knowledge of the past juxtaposed with Hannah’s self harming in the present the experience becomes unsettling as you anticipate all is not well. This is further compounded by Max’s death and although his haunting of the flat does provide comic relief, he finds it highly inconvenient to be a ghost, we experience the grief of Hannah in her loss and are as equally powerful to do anything but watch.
Max’s desire to find out what happened to him and what caused his death also works to drive the narrative forward. We realise as readers that we are slowly creeping closer to finding out what happened to Hannah and her family on The Echoes and discovering the reason she ignores her mother’s letters and has lost contact with her sister. Secrets eventually do reveal themselves in poignant and emotive ways. Despite the trauma that has been experienced by characters there is also much that is positive and funny in this book.
A dark book that explores history, narratives and trauma but also on that offers quietly hopeful endings.
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