Bettina Whitelaw left the small town of Bundaroo behind her when she migrated to England. Now a well-known and well respected author, those childhood years seem almost as far away as the little Australian town itself. But when Bettina decides to write her memoirs, in third person but recognisably history down to the names and places, she discovers that events of the past echo through to the present.
I usually enjoy Barnard's writing, but several things about A Cry From the Dark disrupted my usual absorption. The first, I think, was the style - chapters of current events are interleaved with chapters of Whitelaw's memoirs. I'm usually fine with flashbacks but there was something about her style that really grated, and though I tried I was unable to work out precisely what it was. I also didn't like the slow unveiling of the event that precipitated her abrupt departure from Bundaroo, initially to Sydney and then to London - we know from early on that she was sexually assaulted but the details are only slowly revealed - for some reason I found this unnecessary and irritating rather than suspense-building.
I also found myself bridling at the neo-Colonial attitude harboured toward Australia by Whitelaw (and, I suspect, Barnard - who, according to his author bio, taught English here at some stage). Which brings me to the heart of my discontent - I really didn't like her at all. I was captured by the suspense, and I wasn't shocked by the last-minute revelation that was supposed to turn the whole plot in its head.
I've read perhaps a dozen of Barnard's works, so this isn't enough to put me off, but I think that in future I'll stick to those novels set in the British isles. - Alex
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