Mine – James Russell (Dragon Brothers Books, $22)
Reviewed by Louise Ward, Wardini Books
Jimmy has a lot going on. His mother is crippled from years of domestic abuse and his girlfriend has hooked up with his best mate. Turning to alcohol for the comfort of oblivion he looks in the mirror and finds his father, the man he found dead as a teenager, and whose body he left in the shed as - freed from his reign of terror - he headed out to catch the surf.
Surfing is the predominant passion of the story. The descriptions of massive swells, mushy, slow rolling waves and "gin clear" water are beautiful, making the reader long to be out there with Jimmy. But the lad, in his mid-20s at the height of the story, is thwarted by overcrowded Australian seas filled with idiots dropping in on his waves. To sort his head out, he has to escape. Jimmy uses an inheritance to avoid the increasingly desperate texts from his ex, and heads to Bali, then further into Indonesia. No improvement – the streets and the seas are heaving with party people, tourists hurling their privilege and disrespect at communities reliant on them. Jimmy hires a local to take him to quieter climes and he finds himself, after much surf action, drama and trauma, on North Sentinel Island. This is the place where, in real life 2018, a young missionary was killed by the reclusive islanders after he travelled there illegally.
The author throws Jimmy into a situation that no one has ever reported back on. There is drone footage of the island, distant photographs, but little information as to how the Sentinelese live, or even how many tribespeople there are. The fictional depiction of the island has Jimmy in a precarious position, danger around him at all times. It's a fascinating look at how an outsider, with vastly different lived experience, can intrude upon and unwittingly corrupt systems that have been in place for hundreds or thousands of years. Jimmy, to his credit, is keenly aware of this. His adventure, and his path to self-realisation, give depth to the novel as he makes decisions illustrating the growth of his character.