Arlie is a Melbourne-based portrait photographer with serious talent but limited success. His personal life is a mess, with relationships finishing before they’ve really begun. His brother, Griff, is the successful one, with a stable, well-paid job and lovely wife, Jigs. Arlie’s mother, Dellie, was born in South Africa. She refuses to talk about her early life, and it’s this sense of mystery which propels Arlie to travel there to try to generate photographs for an exhibition. It’s not just any area of South Africa that Arlie decides to live in, either – it’s Kliptown, the poverty-stricken, forgotten shantytown suburb of Soweto.
He’s befriended by Rufaro, a local activist and choirmaster. Arlie feels more at home there despite being the only white face in the community. He dates Glory, whose much younger brother, Samson, becomes very attached to him. Arlie continually collects portraits of Kliptown’s residents but is never sure they’re good enough to exhibit. Arlie’s father – whose interest is work and seemingly little else – visits, begging Arlie to return home.
Arlie uses his camera to capture the inner person but, importantly, the camera is pointed outwards. Gold utilises this as a powerful metaphor, indicating that Arlie cannot see inside himself. He manages to photograph the contrasting beauty and deprivation of Kliptown, but Arlie doesn’t know how to tie his images together for the exhibition until a tragedy within the community forces his hand.
This isn’t a novel to be read quickly. Slow down and savour each word, because Irma Gold is an immense literary talent. Her control of subject matter, character development and narrative arc is exemplary. Her words are as precious as her surname might suggest.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Irma (pronounced Ear-ma) Gold is an award-winning Australian author and editor. Her debut novel, The Breaking, won the NSW Writers Centre Varuna Fellowship and was awarded development grants by artsACT and CAPO. It won a Canberra Critics Circle Award and was shortlisted for the ACT Notable Award for Fiction.
Irma’s debut collection of short fiction, Two Steps Forward, was selected from over 450 manuscripts to be published as the final in the Long Story Shorts series of six short fiction collections.
Her short fiction has also been widely published in journals including Meanjin and in anthologies, including the tenth anniversary edition of Award Winning Australian Stories and Australian Love Stories, edited by Cate Kennedy.
Irma is also the author of five picture books for children. Before moving to Naarm/Melbourne, Irma was Ambassador for the ACT Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge for five years.
0 Comments