Review: ‘It was such a familiar music I believe we stopped hearing it.’
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 12, 2014
Central Queensland in the late 1940s provides the setting for Coal Creek.  Robert Blewitt, known as Bobby Blue, is the hero of this novel and its narrator.  Bobby has worked with his father mustering bullocks, but when Bobby is almost 21 his father dies and he looks for new work.  Bobby approaches Daniel Collins the new local constable at Mount Hay, and becomes his offsider.  Bobby lives in the fibro two man quarters at the back of the police block and has his meals with Constable Collins, his wife Esme and their daughters Irie and Miriam.  Thanks to Esme and Irie, Bobby learns to read and write.  Daniel and Esme Collins have come to Mount Hay to make a difference, and while things start well they don’t continue that way.Bobby’s friend Ben Tobin has a relationship with an Aboriginal girl called Deeds, whose aunt Rosie Gnapun has a grudge against Ben.  Rosie Gnapun makes a complaint to Daniel Collins about Ben which leads Bobby to wonder what he will do if Ben and Daniel come into conflict.Bobby and Irie are drawn to each other, and it’s Irie and Miriam’s setting off for a place that Bobby has talked about that sets in motion a tragic set of consequences.  Irie is only 13, and her parents are quick to think the worst of Bobby.‘All our lives was changed forever in them few confused seconds of panic and none of it should have ever happened.’Bobby’s language reflects his lack of formal education.  This made his voice seem more authentic to me, once I stopped focussing on grammar.  Bobby may have comparatively limited words with which to convey his account of events and to describe place and feelings but he is not bound by the usual rules of language.  He describes what he sees, and he sees more than one possible way of doing things, more than one way to define truth.  Good and evil are relative rather than absolute, respect and flexibility are the keys to survival. And yet, from this novel it is Bobby’s descriptions of country that hooked me and will stay with me long after the story itself has faded in my memory.‘I liked to hear the roar of a creek in flood.  It was the sound of the country breathing after a long spell of holding its breath.’Coal  Creek is Alex Miller’s 11th book: I have added the others to my reading list.‘And that may be just as well, for we can dream in the present and see no harm in it but get our comfort from our dreams, and if we could see the future we would have no dreams but only the wreck of our days to think on.’Jennifer Cameron-Smith