- The Bass Rock, by Evie Wyld. Vintage. $32.99.
Violence against women and children is an issue on which we, as a society, ought to be making progress. The #MeToo movement has triggered more open discussion and awareness of domestic violence, and this can only be good. But just when we begin to hope for improvement, terrible things happen, like the recent death of Hannah Clarke and her three children who were doused in petrol and set alight by their father.
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The #MeToo movement has also spawned many books, both fiction and non-fiction, that slot into the category of domestic violence. Often it's not until late in the writing journey that an author realises their work has these connections.
This was certainly the case for me with my most recent novel. And in an interview about her new work of literary fiction, The Bass Rock, award-winning novelist, Evie Wyld mentioned this too.
Wyld is a challenging and skillful writer. Her talent has been recognised through a list of significant awards for her novels After the Fire A Still Small Voice and All the Birds, Singing. She doesn't flinch from difficult territory, and her courage in tackling tough topics is evident in her new work.
The Bass Rock is a dark and disturbing story that weaves together the narrative threads of three female protagonists separated in time but united through place and other factors that are slowly revealed.
Viv is staying in a house on the wild coast of Scotland near the Bass Rock where she's going through the belongings of Ruth, her father's stepmother.
Wyld deftly sets up the litany of excuses adopted by oppressors to justify their actions. She also shows the reasons and rationalisations desperately grasped by the oppressed to cope with what is happening to them.
Ruth lived here with her new husband Peter in the aftermath of WWII, trying to connect with Peter's sons and understand the strange ways of the local community. The house is heavy with history. There's the sense of another presence inhabiting the house. Sarah, condemned as a witch in the early 1700s, seems to lurk in the shadows, merging with landscape, sea and sky.
Through all this, the Bass Rock watches on: "Somewhere out in the darkness, I can hear waves breaking against the Bass Rock though I cannot see it... The Bass Rock looks far away, but I remember it peering over my shoulder."
It's a silent witness to the lives of these three women, as well as countless others whose souls seem to live in the flocks of seabirds that wheel around the rock and the steely grey sea. "What if all the women that have been killed by men through history were visible to us, all at once?"
The rock is a metaphor for constancy and deception. Indifference. Power and permanence. It reflects the resistance of society to change.
This visceral and haunting novel is a difficult read at times, but it's important because of the themes it explores.
Initially, as the narrative slowly builds, you wonder where the story might go. Then a sense of disquiet creeps in as the trajectory becomes gradually apparent.
Tension hovers throughout. A feeling of dismay as safe boundaries are irrevocably crossed. Power is lost. Fear swells. Death is palpably present; a dead shark on the beach, something unusual in a suitcase on the shore. Evidence of the impact of war on the minds and actions of men.
Wyld deftly sets up the litany of excuses adopted by oppressors to justify their actions. She also shows the reasons and rationalisations desperately grasped by the oppressed to cope with what is happening to them.
It makes us uncomfortable. And so it should! Wyld forces us to see how age-old patterns haven't changed. Entrenched violence and the abuse of women and children aren't going away.
Wyld shows us how lies and disguises are used to foster acceptance. The embedded fear that a woman carries just walking down the street.
The novel also provides incisive insight into the complexity of relationships. The bonds and frictions of family. Inevitable misunderstandings, especially between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives. The nuances of communication. The seismic shifts marriage can make through suspicion and things left unsaid.
Wyld has a keen eye for minutiae. Her perceptive observations of everyday life help us bond with the characters.
She understands the way we deceive ourselves and others to cover shame.
Throughout, weather mirrors mood. "Like the wind swept certain moods and memories away, ... so one could be feeling rather black and then find oneself stood at the line of foam left by the waves and wonder what the blackness had been about."
The Bass Rock is an intelligently woven tale of humanity, self-awareness and finding a better path to safety and equality in the future. It is not a book for the faint-hearted.
Rather, it's a window onto past and present worlds, showing us who we are, what we have been, and how far we still have to go.
- Karen Viggers is the author of four books of literary fiction. Her latest novel is The Orchardist's Daughter.
