Drew Iverson is a writer from Minneapolis, working on his second novel. His first wasn’t hugely successful: ‘Lukewarm reviews, low sales’. Drew learns of his childhood Australian friend’s death, rekindling memories of his time in Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula.
He travels to Australia for Tom’s funeral, but those childhood memories aren’t all rosy. Meeting his old friends and Tom’s family forces him to confront his past.
Drew moved to Queenscliff with his mother and stepfather, who was stationed on the army base on Swan Island. Tom was keen to impart knowledge; Drew was desperate to learn. They became inseparable. The family’s move to Australia was supposed to be for two years, but something significant happened, and they returned to the States after only six months.
Davies foreshadows this past event by directing readers to the actions of the stepfather, who’s suffering with PTSD, and to Drew’s mother and her new baby, Scarlet, who cried incessantly.
Davies finishes chapters in The Broken Wave with hooks. There are also clever subplots which feed into the narrative. Drew notices the similarities between Tom and his son, Adam. He yearns for closeness with a wary Adam and tries to recreate his youth with him.
Drew’s second novel has been sent to his editor, who thinks that Drew’s story lacks emotional depth. She believes something in his past is holding him back.
Clues as to what happened are seeded throughout, particularly pertaining to the pistol belonging to Drew’s stepfather. Different versions of the ‘truth’ of the event 26 years previously are produced by locals. Only Drew knows what really happened. Its reveal is both as expected and disturbingly surprising.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew Ryan Davies is an author, freelance copywriter and editor from Melbourne. He has ghostwritten seven nonfiction titles, written features for Australian magazines, published more than 100 articles online and written scripts for television commercials and documentaries.
Matthew works mostly in the health sphere, editing university textbooks for medical and nursing students and writing for healthcare organisations such as Beyond Blue, Cancer Council Victoria and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
Matthew is the author of This Thing of Darkness, a contemporary young adult novel about guilt, grief, love and forgiveness set in modern-day Melbourne. As a manuscript, This Thing of Darkness was highly commended in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.
Things We Bury was Matthew’s first book for the adult market. It has been optioned for a TV series. The Broken Wave (2023) is Matthew’s second general fiction novel. The story was inspired by a real-life friendship from Matthew’s childhood.
Matthew served as an Emerging Writers’ Festival board member for five years, with a two-year stint as the festival’s chair. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and two grown children.
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