Bereft

Chris Womersley captures the end of World War I in Bereft. The rapid onset of a plague that will turn out to be Spanish Influenza might seem biblical in its apocalyptic proportions, but, after the chaos of the war, faith and God must be questioned and found wanting. Information, often misleading or wrong, slowly circumnavigates the globe, delivering news of more death and destruction. Many of these concerns and anxieties seem fresh, horribly contemporary even with the distance of a Century.

The novel focuses on Quinn, who has fought in the war and is returning to his Australian home of Flint, symbolically a now abandoned gold rush town. He is revisiting family secrets and tensions played out in the quarantined room where his mother is now dying.

The thing that has haunted this family is set out in the book's prologue. It functions almost as a piece of writing in its own right, enigmatic and full of powerful imagery, and shows Womersley's background as a short story writer. The novel expands on this and serves to flesh out its mystery. Quinn's sister is raped and murdered, he is accused and he promptly runs.

Womersley's addictive prose carries us as Quinn builds a friendship with an orphaned girl who is herself waiting for the return of her lost brother. The parallels in their relationship might be obvious, but is used smartly by the author to deliver us to our conclusions. The chaos of family and of growing up seem to be of more importance than the chaos of the world, and ostensibly this books most universal topic is familial bonds.

The writing is punctuated with weighty metaphors and musings on the world; the post-war anxieties, hopes and melancholia of a returning soldier uncertain where it is he can return, if the world even has a place for him.  With little media hype, this novel could be one of those gems that are widely overlooked. If they had called it Pandemic and heightened the importance of the flu virus, this would not be the case. The book is an understated mystery exploring meaning, family and bonds.