The Untold by Courtney Collins

First published in Australia in 2012; published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam on May 29, 2014

A mother named Jessie slices the throat of her prematurely born baby in what she regards as an act of mercy. From his grave, the baby narrates The Untold. The baby is surprisingly aware of events that occur before and after his death. He knows, for instance, that his mother bludgeoned his father to death on the eve of his birth, and that Fitz, his father, deserved it. He knows that his mother met Fitz after being released from a Sydney prison into Fitz' custody. He knows why his mother was sent to prison and he knows the unpleasant story of her childhood and of her difficult married life.

Jessie is the most important of three key characters. The second is a horse-and-cattle thief named Jack Brown, an Aborigine who, like Jessie, must serve Fitz to avoid imprisonment. After Jessie flees from the scene of her crime, Brown helps Andrew Barlow, a police sergeant who has taken an isolated rural posting to overcome his drug addiction, search for her. The story occasionally flashes back to 1903 and later years during Jessie's childhood (still narrated by her yet-to-be-conceived baby). The third key character and several others appear along the way, including circus performers and a gang of boys who rustle cattle. Jessie's past connects to her present in surprising ways.

The intersecting lives of Jessie and Jack set the stage for much of the novel's drama. Death is a pervasive theme, as is hope. The people who live in the valley in which The Untold is set live hard, violent lives. Life is even harder for women. They mitigate their suffering by helping each other. Jessie's life is extraordinarily hard but her spirit endures, buoyed by the fleeting connections she makes with the people she meets as she struggles to retain her freedom. "She imagines herself to be one of those creatures whose nature is not to run from death, but to run alongside it."

Sympathetic characters and a strong story contribute to an engrossing reading experience despite the novel's slow start. Courtney Collins' evocative prose captures the rugged landscape and the desolate hearts of the land's inhabitants. Each key character changes as a result of their coming together, not always for the better but in ways that seem inevitable. The ending satisfies. The only false note is the dead baby's narration. As literary devices go, this one was a poor and puzzling choice. Fortunately the baby's intrusive commentary does not appear often, making the flaw easy to overlook.

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