Reckless is a wonderful surprise, and I enjoyed every page. It is a memoir of Marele Day’s life, particularly her four-year love affair with her fiancé, Tony. Their time is carefree until Tony is taken in a car accident and the grief Day describes is deep, raw and palpable. Months later she takes a trip to Cairns. There, a chance meeting with a crew member, sees Marele on a yacht sailing to Asia. The leg to Darwin doesn’t go well and in Darwin she switches boats to one with a charismatic French skipper called Jean. The next three months see harrowing adventures and a bond forms between Jean and Marele that spans 30 years.
The second part of the book sees Marele delve into Jean’s interesting past – he hijacked a plane in 1971 and demanded medicine for refugees. He was a crusader running soup kitchens in Asia and was involved in an eight million francs heist. As Jean Kay comes to the end of his life, he asks Marele to write the story of the heist and sends her a large package of newspaper clippings.
As she follows the trail and interviews people related to the crime, she has to confront that her ‘brother to the poor’ may have told her his truth but the real truth is somewhat different.
Marele Day is an accomplished Australian author so her prose and pacing is perfect. The memoir is part study on grief, part crime story and part travel guide. I love the way she asks deep questions and attempts to answer them in the context of Jean, and the crusader’s unconventional life.
Reviewed by Nicola Skinstad
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marele Day’s four-book Claudia Valentine series won her a Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award for crime writing. Her bestselling literary novel, Lambs of God, was published to acclaim in Australia and overseas, and became a multi-award winning miniseries. Other novels include Mrs Cook: The Real and Imagined Life of the Captain’s Wife, and The Sea Bed. Marele has more than twenty years’ experience as a mentor and teacher of Creative Writing. She has served as judge for literary competitions including the Vogel Awards and NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. She lives on Bundjalung country in northern New South Wales.
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