Larissa Behrendt's After Story was one of the most purely enjoyable novels I read this year. It combines several of my favourite areas of interest: Indigenous narratives; landscape and architecture; troubled families; literature; feminism; Australian and English history... A rich soup of delightful stuff!
The premise of After Story is simple: mother and daughter Della and Jasmine take a tour of British literary sights -- the home of the Brontes, Oxford, Virginia Woolf's house etc, and they narrate their travels in alternate chapters, so we get to see the same events through different eyes (multiple viewpoints, another of my favourite things!) Della and Jasmine have a difficult relationship, forever shadowed by the death of Jasmine's sister as a child. Della doesn't know much about literature or history, but she knows about people, and grief, and love, and her reflections are a poignant and often humorous counterpoint to Jasmine's more academic thoughts about feminism, racism and the power of story. You don't need to have read the classic novels discussed here to appreciate this book, though it does add an extra layer of enjoyment if you have.
After Story was such a pleasurable reading experience, but it also incorporates some dark themes. Della is an alcoholic, battling the demons of her daughter's disappearance as well as her own childhood trauma. Jasmine has tried to distance herself from her home town, without realising that this has also distanced her from her family and her heritage. Watching mother and daughter achieve a tentative reconciliation and acceptance of each other's flaws is very moving. I'm giving this one to my mother-in-law for Christmas.
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