- The Spill, by Imbi Neeme. Viking. $32.99.
This tale of families, secrets and love, which won last year's Penguin Literary Prize, is cleverly structured, nicely paced and rarely lags as it travels the decades between 1982 and 2009.
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And yet, I found myself wishing for some deeper insights into sisters Nicole and Samantha and their larger-than-life mother Tina.
The novel opens in 1982 after a car crash in regional WA - the eponymous spill.
Older sister Nicole and younger sibling Samantha are waiting on the veranda of the Bruce Rock pub. Tina is inside, tanked and playing to the whole bar. Craig, her husband and the girls' father, is coming to pick them up from Perth.
All is observed through the eyes of Nicole and Samantha. We know what has happened, but not what caused the spill.
The story then jumps forward to Tina's funeral. After her wake, Nicole and Samantha start to bicker about who Tina was, and the extent of her drinking.
Nicole pulls out one of Tina's puzzles and cajoles Samantha into doing it with her.
The puzzle becomes the motif through which the story unfolds, as the fragments of Nicole and Samantha's lives, the lives of Tina and her sister Meg, and that of Craig and his wives, are pieced together.
Neeme's sharp dialogue and funny one-liners are a real strength of the work.
Readers who know WA will also enjoy some tart descriptions of middle class Perth.
Nicole, the source of some of the best deadpan dialogue in the book, is the most winning character.
Samantha, on the other hand, is outwardly controlling and utterly unforgiving of Tina's drinking.
Yet Samantha is a drinker herself, a secret she hides from her sister, husband, daughter and social circle.
While the shadow of Tina's drinking haunts all the characters, Tina herself remains enigmatic.
We catch only glimpses of her pain at losing her marriage, her home and her daughter, as Sam goes to live with Craig when the marriage breaks down.
There are some ugly moments and awful tension in The Spill. However the handling of momentous issues like death, addiction and relationship breakdowns often feels too casual.
Neeme keeps her story moving along at a fair clip, which is perhaps both a strength and a weakness.
Her characters would have been well served if she had lingered at a few key emotional junctures.
The Spill has heart and charm in spades. A bit more soul would have completed it.
- Christine Kearney is a Canberra writer and reviewer.