When the Night Comes (Favel Parrett, Hachette)

Isla, 11 years old, has recently moved from Victoria to Hobart with her brother and mother following her parents’ separation. In Hobart in the late 1980s, the family struggles quietly with poverty and the loneliness that relocation brings. Isla’s mother forms a relationship with their new border, Bo, a Danish cook who works on the Antarctic resupply vessel Nella Dan, and much of the novel chronicles the ship’s journeys and Isla’s growing friendship with her mother’s new friend. Isla’s mother’s relationship with Bo, though central to the story, is almost entirely unexplored in the text. But this omission is typical of what makes Favel Parrett’s novel so successful, capturing childhood’s brief and often contextless encounters with the realities of adult life. When the Night Comes presents the objects and rituals of a childhood in the late 80s with an eerie accuracy, especially for those of us who grew up with them. While the prose is sometimes too pared back, Parrett’s ability to reinvigorate the novel’s naturally slow pace with a child’s encounters with adult troubles is what makes the story work. When the Night Comes combines the realism of early David Malouf with the sombre concision of Dorothy Porter, and is skilfully shaped to make the historical feel truly present. It is Parrett’s second novel following her 2011 debut Past the Shallows.

Dave Little is a bookseller and event coordinator at Riverbend Books

Category: Reviews