The Starlings

 

Vivienne Kelly's novel The Starlings comes with a sticker proclaiming, Guaranteed Great Read or Your Money Back -- you'd have to be pretty confident to make a claim like that, but in this case it's justified. I so enjoyed this book, which I borrowed from the library because of a stray reference to King Arthur.

The Starlings is narrated by eight year old Nicky, struggling to understand the currents of adult emotion swirling about him, as his grandfather forms a new relationship with beautiful nurse Rose, his sister disappears on mysterious midnight excursions, his father seems only to care about Hawthorn's fortunes in the AFL, and his mother is living in a world of her own. The Starlings is often very funny, as Nicky forms his own interpretations of events and translates the dramas he dimly perceives into the plays he enacts with the Heroes of the Cosmos figurines in his bedroom, mediated through tales from Shakespeare or Arthurian legends. It's very cleverly done and also quite poignant at times.

I loved the way the novel was structured around the 1985 football season (poor Nicky recoils from his father's rage and frustration at the games).* I also enjoyed Nicky's battle with the jigsaw puzzle at his grandfather's house, which happened to be a jigsaw I have recently tackled myself!

I have to agree with Nicky, the waves were particularly tricky... The Starlings is a hugely enjoyable and accomplished novel which I wish I'd read sooner. Come for King Arthur but stay for the touching and funny family drama.

*In 1985, Footscray fell out of the competition at the preliminary final stage -- some things never change.