Draft:Flames (novel)
| Author | Robbie Arnott |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | W. H. Chong |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Magical realism |
| Publisher | Text Publishing |
Publication date | 1 May 2018 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 226 |
| ISBN | 978-1-922-26821-1 |
| Followed by | The Rain Heron |
Flames is a 2018 debut novel by the Australian author Robbie Arnott.
Plot
[edit]Two days after siblings Levi and Charlotte McAllister spread their mother Edith's ashes in Notley Fern Gorge, she returns to life. Edith, unresponsive to her children, walks to their father Jack's house and self immolates on his front lawn. Whilst Charlotte grows increasingly paranoid that the same thing may happen to her, Levi resolves to build her a coffin strong enough so that she may not return after burial. Upon the discovery of Levi's plans, Charlotte flees in terror.
After fighting off a pair of miners in Tunbridge, who had attempted to assault her, Charlotte decides to travel to Melaleuca, a secluded locality the miners had mentioned in conversation. Levi, meanwhile, makes contact with a Thurston Hough, a coffin maker, who claims to have killed a water rat whose pelt offers strange powers, granting confidence. In reality, the water rat was the Esk God, a deity presiding over the esk rivers of Tasmania. Hough reports that he cannot complete work on the coffin as the animals along the river have begun terrorising him, in retaliation over the Esk God's death.
Levi hires a detective to track down Charlotte. The detective travels to Tunbridge and meets the miners, who reveal Charlotte's plans to travel to Melaleuca. Charlotte, meanwhile, has begun working at a wombat farm in Melaleuca. The wombats are slowly being killed by a cormorant. The farm's manager, Allen Gibson, slowly descends into madness, eventually realising that he has been slaughtering the wombats, possessed by the cormorant's spirit. The possessed Allen attacks Charlotte, who begins to sprouts flames from her body. Allen retreats into a cave, being followed by the flames. Charlotte and the other farmhand, Nicola, make contact with the ranger, who transports them out of Melaleuca Meanwhile, the detective arrives as the farmland is burning. A man, Jack, walks towards the detective and tells her to leave his daughter, Charlotte, alone.
Charlotte and Nicola travel to a stone cabin owned by Nicola's relative in Cradle Mountain, hiding out. A romance develops between them. Charlotte, who still produces flames from her body, realises that Nicola's touch is the only thing that prevents the flames from forming. The detective, meanwhile, arrives at the cabin and urges Charlotte to return to her brother.
Levi retrieves the half-finished coffin and the Esk God's pelt from Hough's house, Hough having been killed by the animals along the river. He returns home to discover his father, Jack, in the house. Jack reveals to Levi that he is in reality an ancient fire spirit, who can teleport from fire and influence people to his will. Jack reveals that he influenced Levi's mother Edith to begin loving him, which is the reason Jack has distanced himself from his children. Against his father's wishes Levi, influenced by the pelt, travels to Notley Fern Gorge to complete the half-finished coffin.
The detective convinces Charlotte and Nicola to reunite with Levi. The travel to the gorge, where Levi is mentally unstable, building the coffin. Charlotte is unable to control the flames from her body, which ignite the nearby forest. Jack appears from the flames to whisper something to Charlotte, before leaving. Suddenly, a large downpour puts out the forest fire, a manifestation of the Cloud God's grief for the Esk God's death, who had been in love.
Levi awakes in hospital. Charlotte informs him that the forest fire was extinguished by the largest flood in centuries, the detective has left, and Nicola is in the hospital for burn injuries. The siblings visit Nicola in her hospital room, where Levi breaks down and sobs. Nicola suggests he go fishing with her father, Karl.
Sometime later, Levi and Karl are looking for a seal pup on the river. Levi dives into the water and is eventually met with a seal pup, who it is revealed gives new meaning and purpose to his life.
Principal characters
[edit]- Levi McAllister, etc.
- Charlotte McAllister
- Jack McAllister
- Edith McAllister, recently-deceased mother of Levi and Charlotte.[1]
- Karl, a fisherman and Nicola's father.[2]
- The Detective, a private investigator hired by Levi to locate Charlotte.[2]
- Nicola; Karl's daughter; etc..
- Allen Gibson, manager of the wombat farm at Melaleuca.
- The Esk God
- The Cloud God
- Thurston Hough, a coffin builder hired by Levi.[1]
Major themes
[edit]Style
[edit]Each chapter of the novel is written from a different character's perspective, ranging from first-person, third-person, epistolary, present and past tense.[1][2][3] He wrote the novel from multiple perspectives in order to properly capture the wild environment of Tasmania and because he wanted each chapter to feel "fresh" and "exciting".[3] The novel's central genre is magical realism,[2][3] although it has been described as a novel that "confidently borrows from the genres of crime fiction, thriller, romance, comedy, eco-literature, and magical realism, throws them in the air, and lets the pieces land to form a flaming new world".[1]
Arnott described the novel as a story of "love, grief, family and of the natural world, and how all these things effect each other".[3] Arnott deliberately chose not to include the word "Tasmania" in the entire novel, because he felt that it was unnecessary, in the same way that certain novels set in New York do not name "New York" specifically, yet everyone knows in which city they are set.[3]
Background
[edit]Arnott claimed that the novel's first chapter began as a short story, originally published in mid-2017.[4] The story was met with positive feedback, which led Arnott to develop the story into a complete novel, which took him seven to eight months to complete: "I barely slept and it drove me crazy, but I finished it."[4][5] Arnott contributed with editors from Text Publishing in producing the final draft of Flames.[4] After Arnott completing the novel, the editing team altered "only a few chapters" and added a new chapter to produce the finished draft.[4] Arnott claimed that Karl's seal was inspired by the seals he had observed whilst tuna fishing.[4]
Arnott wished to write a novel that was "surprising, emotional and rewarding to read".[3] He also wished to write about Tasmania "in a way that hadn't been done before, with a story that felt completely impossible but also somehow recognisable".[5] The Tasmanian landscape was the main inspiration for the novel: "Not just how it appears, but how it makes you feel," Arnott wrote.[5] Arnott was reading the memoir H is for Hawk whilst writing the novel; he noted that "its interrogation of grief, and the relationship between the author and her half-wild goshawk, left a heavy mark on my own work".[6]
Arnott described the novel as one that "never follows a traditional narrative; each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character Charlotte or Levi encounters, often in a different genre".[6]
The novel was first launched at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart, officially unveiled by Australian author Richard Flanagan.[4]
Publication history
[edit]Awards and nominations
[edit]| Year | Award | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction | Shortlisted | [7] |
| University of Queensland Fiction Book Award | Shortlisted | [7] | |
| 2019 | ALS Gold Medal | Longlisted | [7] |
| Indie Book Awards for Debut Fiction | Longlisted | [7] | |
| Kathleen Mitchell Award | Shortlisted | [7] | |
| Margaret Scott Prize | Won | [7] | |
| Miles Franklin Literary Award | Longlisted | [7] | |
| MUD Literary Club | Shortlisted | [7] | |
| Not the Booker Prize | Shortlisted | [7] | |
| The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists | Won | [8][9] | |
| Tasmania Book Prize | Shortlisted | [7] | |
| UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing | Shortlisted | [7] | |
| Victrorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction | Shortlisted | [7] | |
| Voss Literary Prize | Longlisted | [7] | |
| 2020 | International Dublin Literary Award | Longlisted | [7] |
Reception
[edit]Flames has been included as a text in the Victorian Certificate of Education school curriculum.[10][3]
Tasmanian readers and bookshops were "hugely supportive" of Flames upon its publication.[4]
Sam Jordison, writing in The Guardian, believed that the novel was "solid, significant and emotionally resonant" and praised Arnott's description of the Tasmanian landscape.[2] He felt "charmed" by the novel, which "convinced [him that] it was about real people and an important place".[2] However, he felt that the novel's structure was "ambitious" and believed that certain characters and chapters were "fleeting", criticising Arnott's strained attempts at humour.[2]
Adaptations
[edit]In June 2020, it was reported that Flames would be adapted into a six-part television series, with $20,000 funded by the Tasmanian Government. The series is set to be produced by Jungle Entertainment, with Chloe Rickard serving as executive producer. Marieke Hardy will be lead writer for the series, whilst Arnott will act as a consultant.[5][11]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Dempster, Sarah (8 June 2018). "A mythic re-imagining of small-town Australia". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 21 September 2024. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g Jordison, Sam (19 August 2019). "Not the Booker: Flames by Robbie Arnott review – magic works in a wild Tasmania". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 20 December 2023. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g Text Publishing (9 February 2022). Robbie Arnott on Flames (Video). Retrieved 3 October 2024 – via YouTube.
- ^ a b c d e f g James, Arianne (3 July 2018). "Close and Personal with Robbie Arnott". TasWriters. Archived from the original on 27 February 2024. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
- ^ a b c d Jones, Callum J. (20 June 2020). "New six-part TV series: Flames". Tasmanian Times. Archived from the original on 22 November 2021. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
- ^ a b Jabour, Bridie; Doherty, Ben; Carmichael, Jay; Connell, John; Stefanovic, Sofija; O'Grady, Emily; Tumarkin, Maria; Christian, David; Arnott, Robbie (27 May 2018). "From cow stories to the history of humanity: what you should read in May". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 3 June 2023. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "Flames, book by Robbie Arnott". Text Publishing. 28 April 2020. Archived from the original on 13 April 2024. Retrieved 21 September 2024.
- ^ "Four writers named 2019 'SMH' Best Young Australian Novelists". Books+Publishing. 6 May 2019. Archived from the original on 21 June 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
- ^ Steger, Jason (3 May 2019). "Four writers chosen as the Herald's best young Australian novelists". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 24 January 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
- ^ VCE English & Literature. "Research Guides: VCE English & Literature guide - units 3 & 4: Australian texts". State Library Victoria. Archived from the original on 22 March 2024. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
- ^ "'Flames' to be adapted for screen". Books+Publishing. 22 October 2020. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 1 October 2024.