Books Roundup

The Psychic Tests
Gary Nunn (Pantera Press, available now)

The Psychic Tests is our First Book Club pick for October—Stay tuned for features on our website and podcast throughout the month!

In The Psychic Tests, journalist Gary Nunn sets out to understand the world of psychics, mediums and the supernatural, from ancient practices to contemporary meme astrology. Each chapter of the book measures up the influence and impact of a range of psychic practitioners on different aspects of society: love, ethics, the law, and more. Two of the more disturbing chapters are those that focus on health and politics.

Many of us have come face-to-face with the dangerous nature of new age approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years, but reading about the power some psychics wield in politics was somewhat shocking. Nunn writes about the psychics connected to the Nazi party, the Reagans, and closer to home the partner of former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Blanche D’Alpuget. In this chapter, he reflects that ‘the supernatural must offer unique appeal to those at the top of the ladder, whether democratically elected world leaders or megalomaniac dictators’ and this idea carries through the book: otherwise logical, reasonable people, often in positions of power (detectives, CEOs, etc.), seek help from those who deal outside of the rational world. 

This idea carries through the book: otherwise logical, reasonable people, often in positions of power, seek help from those who deal outside of the rational world. 

On his journey, Nunn meets some colourful characters. Some take their spiritual work as completely serious, while others have a lighter approach to sharing their ‘gift’. Nunn speaks with Sharina Star, a psychic who also works as a radio announcer, celebrant and TV presenter. Sharina says of her work that ‘50 per cent is entertainment; 50 per cent is serious.’ In the book’s introduction, Nunn establishes that he will ‘adopt an agnostic approach to the mystical world’, noting that to him it seems ‘the sceptics are as fervent in their scepticism as believers are in their belief.’ Nunn sticks to his word: throughout the entire book he treats the subject at hand with genuine curiosity. While he is unsympathetic to scammers and psychics who take advantage of vulnerable people, his stance on mysticism in general is non-judgemental, and in the case of Sharina Star, he seems to genuinely enjoy her company and advice. With this approach, Nunn encourages his audience to focus on the real ethical wrongdoings of those who claim to have psychic abilities, rather than mocking the industry for its wackiness. 

The Psychic Tests is an interesting and entertaining book about one of the stranger corners of contemporary culture. Nunn is asking what role psychics, and the supernatural world they claim to represent, should have in our society. And after all of the tests, he comes to a conclusion: ‘There is absolutely value in this. There is power, too. And yes, there is harm.’ Whether you are a sceptic or a believer, you will definitely learn something from this open-minded exploration. 

— Ellen Cregan

After the Tampa
Abbas Nazari (Allen & Unwin, available now)

After The Tampa centers around the life-altering boat journey undertaken by Abbas Nazari’s family when they fled their home of Sungjoy, a village in the mountains of northern Afghanistan, in early 2001. The journey would take six months before they were safely resettled in New Zealand. Abbas was seven years old, accompanied by his parents and four siblings, one of whom was an infant.

When Nazari was approached by Allen & Unwin to tell his story about being a refugee, he could easily have filled the pages with the near-death experience aboard the Palapa. The dilapidated fishing boat had the impossible task of carrying 438 people across perilous waters from Indonesia to Christmas Island. It would have been a thrilling tale. Readers would have delighted in the happy ending when the sinking boat was rescued by the Norwegian container ship, the Tampa.

Nazari succeeds in putting a face to the Tampa refugee, but he also challenges readers with the idea that refugees are more than their trauma.

Instead, Nazari chooses to pause the tale at critical points. One chapter steps into the past and walks us through a day in the life of a villager from Sungjoy. Another lays out a timeline of events leading to that peaceful existence being destroyed through systematic violence and genocide by the Taliban. The splicing of the main narrative with crucial historical background creates powerful narrative tension. The writing structure mimics the fine line between calm and chaos experienced by Nazari and his companions. His own memories are supplemented by the experiences of his parents and other Tampa refugees, sharing the human stories behind the headlines. He puts the reader in the shoes of those forced to flee:

I want you to imagine being in a situation where the future—the very existence—of your family forces you to make an impossible choice. You have to choose whether to stay in the life you know and face misery upon misery, or leave and take a chance on the slightest sliver of unseen hope. What would you do?

Many Australians will recall the fanning of public fear of ‘boat people’ around the same time as the Tampa affair was unfolding in August, 2001. Nazari describes how our ex-prime minister John Howard manipulated the situation to help steer the upcoming election in his favour. Refugees were denied their humanity, as Nazari notes, ‘We were not fellow human beings desperately fleeing death and torture; we were pawns in a political game.’

Nazari succeeds in putting a face to the Tampa refugee, but he also challenges readers with the idea that refugees are more than their trauma. As a teenager growing up in New Zealand, Nazari went through much of the same growing pains most of us will recognise—flouting the rules, confusion about what career to pursue. The personal story humanises the meticulously researched historical and political context. The result is a deeply heartfelt and eye-opening approach to understanding one of the greatest issues facing our world today.

— Marise Phillips

Bodies of Light
Jennifer Down (Text Publishing, available now)

The question at the core of Jennifer Down’s new novel, Bodies of Light, isn’t ‘Is she guilty?’—it’s ‘How is a person formed?’

When Maggie Sullivan was a little girl, at one of her foster homes in the early 80s, the children started playing a game called Azaria, inspired by the then-recent—and ultimately false—accusation that Lindy Chamberlain had killed her infant daughter. ‘Every role other than Lindy was a bit part. Sometimes she was a grief-stricken mother, sometimes a villainous murderer,’ Maggie recalls. Less than 20 years later, she herself would be tarred with the same brush.

Down has written a sweeping, intensely immersive novel, telling Maggie’s story. After receiving a Facebook message that threatens to unsettle her new life, the novel divides into two timelines—present-day Maggie looking back over her dark and unsettled past.

This novel isn’t wallowing in sadness for sadness’ sake—it’s painting a picture of a woman shaped by ugly realities.

Unlike Hanya Yanagihara’s trauma-filled A Little Life, in Bodies of Light—with the exception of an addiction storyline that, though well-rendered, feels unnecessary—the misfortunes and horrors woven throughout the story don’t feel gratuitous or forced. This novel isn’t wallowing in sadness for sadness’ sake—it’s painting a picture of a woman shaped by ugly realities, and exploring the quiet ways these experiences mute or amplify her reactions and emotions in later life.

Down’s decision not to use quotation marks for dialogue quietly nods to the fact that, though scenes are rendered vividly and feel as though they are unfolding in real time, this is Maggie’s memory—and memory is fallible. This fact is most striking in the rare moments readers leave Maggie’s perspective and are shown snippets of emails, interview transcripts, notes scribbled into a file. After spending so long in Maggie’s mind, seeing the world through her eyes, it comes as a shock sometimes to see how the character is perceived by those around her; how she comes across when all that readers are offered are her words, and not her thoughts.

Subtle tonal shifts reflect not just what Maggie is thinking but how she is thinking it. Brutal, blunt words when she remembers deep traumas. Gentle, lilting sentences for the moments of hope in between. Frenzied strings of imagery as she starts to spiral—in one particularly heightened recollection, almost an entire page is taken up by a single frenetic and emotionally charged sentence.

Down trusts in her readers to fill in the gaps between her words. Bodies of Light offers up a lot of questions, and not all of them are answered—it is a stronger novel because of this.

— Elizabeth Flux

In Moonland
Miles Allinson (Scribe, available now)

Once I become a parent myself, I wonder if I’ll still think about the things my Dad got up to in his twenties, about his life before me. This is the preoccupation of the narrator of In Moonland, who tries to understand his father and parenthood, and grapples with his own patriarchal identity. From Indian ashrams to Melbourne’s suburbs, from commune to community, the search for meaning via our parents is the thread that Miles Allinson weaves throughout his sophomore novel, culminating in a dystopian-tinged flash to a future that does not feel too distant.

Rather than a cult whodunnit, this compelling novel considers the mysteries of the human experience.

From blurb to cover, the pitch for In Moonland points to a psychedelic trip through cultish ashrams, and perhaps a fictionalised account of notorious Rajneesh movement leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in the style of Laura Elizabeth Woollet’s meticulous Beautiful Revolutionary. Instead, what follows across three parts is a compassionate exploration of our relationships to our parents, and the complexity of identity once one becomes a parent. To become a father is to enter a new state of being, one with necessary losses, our narrator Joe muses upon the birth of his daughter Sylvie:

How lost, now, all those days and years were that preceded Sylvie’s arrival. That period of my life was gradually becoming mythological. Or at least, it might seem like that to her, I thought, when she’s old enough to imagine it.

The breakdown of Joe’s marriage and the death of a childhood friend sets him off on an obsessive journey to discover what happened to his father Vincent during the time before his birth. We then travel to Vincent’s past, reliving his time in India and exposing the secrets that shaped him.

Rather than a cult whodunnit, this compelling novel considers the mysteries of the human experience.  So too does it explore family dynamics, legacy and toxic masculinity. With women often sidelined and abandoned in the text, this legacy of male abandonment shapes the final triptych of the novel, where Sylvie completes the circle, returning to her father while running away from the father of her own child.

Allinson’s writing through In Moonland is flowing and evocative, rendering a vivid trip through time and place, from 1970s India to a sweaty, dusty future Australia. With the urgency of a page-turner, but the reflective, sometimes grim prose popular among young Aussie literary darlings, the novel is highly readable and thoughtfully crafted. While the mystery at the ashram and the slightly dystopic future of Sylvie could feel a little mismatched with the remainder of the text, these juxtapositions work to enhance that dissociation. In Moonland brings to mind a yellowing photo album or a home video that suggests a shadow of who your parents once were.

— Rebecca Varcoe