The Hard Word

By John Clanchy, St Lucia: UQP, 2002, 295 pages, paperback, $30.00. Reviewed by Geoff Parkes in the Aug/Sep 2003 issue.

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Given the complexities of contemporary Australian identities, the tricks and turns and intricacies of the multitudes of cultural practices that somehow combine to constitute 'Australianess', it's a brave writer who decides to write a novel about an Australian family. Clanchy, already well established with four previous works of fiction, is not merely content to write this mythical beast, but also to craft three females as the central characters, one - Vera - who has Alzheimer's. Another - Miriam, Vera's daughter - is the Anglo ex-wife of a Greek peasant, and teaches English to students, many of whom have lived or are living in a nameless Sydney 'detention centre'. Amidst it all is Laura, Miriam's daughter, who is swimming her way through the joys of the hormonally-enhanced adolescent, and there's also stepfamilies, best-practice bureaucracies and the mischievous little sister who is the only one capable of fully understanding her grandmother's dementia-gripped attempts to communicate.

Clanchy employs a fragmented narrative style to develop his characters and this is achieved with surprising sensitivity. Each chapter is named after its speaker, and some chapters repeat the same events from differing perspectives. Clanchy has a knack for landing the inflections and attitudes of his characters just right, with Laura's monologues including the delicious 'she's worried and anxious about Grandma Vera and how she'll manage in a nursing home, and will they torture her and make her drink her own urine instead of porridge for breakfast like it's a madhouse from the nineteenth century or run by the Liberal Party or something.' (p 254)

Whether it be nursing homes or the white-picket fence neighbourhood scared of Muslim women visitors, Clanchy seems able to poke fun without ear bashing, to provoke thought via laughter without ever going over the top. Even the messy meanderings of Vera's monologues don't become banal or pitiful as the intent behind the attempted communications is revealed late in the text. Consequently, The Hard Word is a well-skilled portrayal of families, whatever their constituents, trying to survive their complexities. It's a text that is as sensitive as it is subtle, and obviously well-sculpted and stripped so as nothing is superfluous. In fact, it's only days later when I realise what the hard word of the title is, the hardest one to define, to create and to believe in, and any novel that leaves an impression as deep as this is worthy of recommendation.

Citation

• Geoff Parkes. 'Review: The Hard Word by John Clanchy' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), Aug/Sep 2003. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 19 June 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

• Vera, Miriam, Laura - one family, three generations - with Miriam at the centre, balancing the needs of her mother and daughter with those of her marriage and career.
  
  Vera is slipping into the darkness of Alzheimer's disease, while Laura is embroiled in teenage conflicts of identity and sexuality.
  
  In her professional life, Miriam is able to help others unlock the past through the simple power of words. So, what prevents her from doing it for those closest to her? And for herself ...?
  
  The answer to this painful dilemma emerges not so much from within Miriam herself, but from the hard, raw experience of the migrant and refugee women she teaches. Their stories resonate with her own, and she finds herself sustained in her own crisis by their strength and laughter.
  
  In this sensitive exploration of memory, love and family, John Clanchy's writing reaches new levels of insight, while retaining its distinctive humour.

Have You Also Read?

• An Australian Girl
  
  Catherine Martin, St Lucia: UQP, 2002, 728 Pages, Paperback, $80.00
  Reviewed by Marion Spies in the June 2003 issue.
  
  Many of us who remember the excellent work of Rosemary (Foxton) Campbell in editing Catherine Martin's The Silent Sea (UNSW Press, 1996) have eagerly awaited this new publication, which again clearly demonstrates the editor's accuracy and knowledge of both European and Australian nineteenth century literature and culture. Indeed, Martin's An Australian Girl is long overdue for re-issue in a reliable and quotable form, because -- although the original 1890 edition is still widely availible in Australian libraries -- the two modern reprints to date (by Pandora in 1988 and Oxford World's Classics in 1999) are based on abridged versions. In this edition, the University of Queensland Press ... read more.