The below quote doesn’t spoil any of The Secrets of the Huon Wren.
Reverend Green had delivered his message, as predicted, to the rhythmic rocking of his hips against the lectern, providing a temp for his words. Slow as molasses. She couldn’t look at Michal. She’d told him of the time the older boys had wiped chalk dust along the edge of the lectern. Poor Mrs Green had fumbled at the front of his crisp black suit slacks, trying to remove the bright white stripe across his pelvis, setting the whole country congregation a-titter with observations of Rev. Green’s crotch. Michal had laughed until tears ran down his face.
It’s weird to find yourself in a novel.
To clarify, I am not suggesting that it’s me specifically who Claire van Ryn was recalling as the ‘older boys (who) had wiped chalk dust along the edge of the’ desk at the front of our science classroom, but I was definitely guilty of doing so. On the one occasion when Mr Green caught me, I spent the first part of that lunchtime writing out my times tables. The thing was that Mr Green always issued the same detention, so I had completed half of them during the class before the bell rang.
This isn’t the first book that I’ve read written by an author I know personally, but when it’s someone that you actually journeyed through the same school with, albeit in different grades, it definitely is entertaining to find anecdotes and little throwbacks like this within the text.
When you’re learning to write creatively, one of the mantras given is to ‘write what you know,’ and Claire Van Ryn has done a lot of that with The Secrets of the Huon Wren. A tale of two Tasmanian women, a contemporary-era journalist, reflecting Van Ryn’s own career, and another growing up in the Meander region of rural Tasmania in the 1950s, a region that it is clearly evident remains close to the author’s heart.
I’m going to be honest, and perhaps it’s just me, but I am not a massive fan of multi-timeline stories. It’s a subjective thing, so I don’t note that as a criticism of this novel, only as a challenge for me, as the reader. Van Ryn’s debut novel has received great reviews, and I, for my part, did enjoy reading it for the most part, but we all have our tastes and preferences, and that aspect of this particular story was a challenge for this individual reader.
That said, the novel itself is a comfortable read. Van Ryn’s pacing of the story is consistent and kept me turning the pages without feeling like I was moving too fast or, more critically, struggling to trudge through the content. Van Ryn kept me wanting to turn the next page, and every time I put the book down, it was reluctantly. There’s a part of me that misses the days where I’d sit in the doorway of my unit and finish a book at 3am, but those days are behind me now. I think, though, that were it something that I was still capable of, this novel might have enjoyed that treatment.
That said, it is also a story worth savouring. There is a lot of depth to the tales, a lot of content that is worth pausing and reflecting on, particularly as you consider the realities of life in post-war Tasmania, not even a decade free from the human catastrophe that was the Second World War.
I found an interesting dichotomy between the two lead characters, and it feels like you can identify the level of familiarity. Allira, the modern-day journalist, doesn’t feel like she’s quite a self-insertion, but you can feel Van Ryn’s familiarity when it comes to being in the mind of this character, particularly when contrasted with the story of a teenage girl growing up in 1950s Tasmania. The details are well-researched, the setting feels rustic, charming, and warm, but it does feel like there’s an arm’s length in these chapters – particularly the early ones – of Evelyn’s point of view that aren’t there in Allira’s (Which makes obvious sense, again, I don’t note this as a criticism).
Another lesson I remember learning in developing my own writing craft, is to remember that ‘the truth is stranger than fiction’ is a statement that swings both ways. Things happen in the real world that just make you question your view on reality, but those things often can’t be written into fiction, because it actually can break the audience’s suspension of disbelief. This was my biggest struggle within the story, and I hesitate to even bring it up because it’s not like I didn’t enjoy the tale, even being outside of what I’d normally read. I did find it entertaining, but there’s one ‘twist’ in particular that just pushed my own head out of the story.
It’s hard to write about in this context, because I don’t want to spoil the story itself, but I did literally exclaim “Oh no, Claire! You didn’t!” It was one of those moments that I saw coming a mile away, and yet pleaded as it got closer that this obvious revelation wasn’t going to strike.
Then it did.
When I talk about the truth being stranger than fiction, it was one of those moments where, as a Tasmanian, if it happened in real life, you’d think ‘Oh that is so Tasmanian,’ but when it happens in print, it feels too Tasmanian, if that makes sense?
And I reiterate, I hate to be critical in this sense, because for everything else, I thoroughly enjoyed The Secrets of the Huon Wren. I would absolutely recommend it to others to read, and these perspectives, I would emphasise, are completely subjective.
The Secrets of the Huon Wren is a fantastic debut novel from Claire Van Ryn. It’s filled with charm, with emotion, with history, and presents an evocative and ruminative image of Tasmania, particularly the historical chapters.
One final thought about the historical aspect, I find that storytellers of our generation can sometimes struggle with presenting a realistic-feeling of the historical eras. Growing up in a time when equality and diversity has been becoming more prevalent and accepted, many times I can be reading a story or watching something on TV and it feels like history has been sanded back, the hard aspects of life and society softened enough to be palatable to a 21st-century audience. I didn’t feel this with Van Ryn’s writing, it felt – at least from my own perspective of not having experienced it either – genuine.
So is it worth the read? Absolutely. The Secrets of the Huon Wren is available on Kindle and no doubt all kinds of good booksellers. (Affiliate Link)