Echolalia | Briohny Doyle
- Carly
- Jul 19, 2022
- 2 min read
Rviewed by her: 1 June 2021 🤍💛💛🧡❤️
Before: Emma Cormac married into a perfect life but now she's barely coping. Inside a brand new, palatial home, her three young children need more than she can give. Clem, a wilful four year old, is intent on mimicking her grandmother; the formidable matriarch Pat Cormac. Arthur is almost three and still won't speak. At least baby Robbie is perfect. He's the future of the family. So why can't Emma hold him without wanting to scream? Beyond their gleaming windows, a lake vista is evaporating. The birds have mostly disappeared, too. All over Shorehaven, the Cormac family buys up land to develop into cheap housing for people they openly scorn. After: The summers have grown even fiercer and the Cormac name doesn't mean what it used to. Arthur has taken it abroad, far from a family unable to understand him. Clem is a young artist who turns obsessively to the same dark subject. Pat doesn't even know what legacy means now. Not since the ground started sinking beneath her. Meanwhile, a nameless woman has been released from state care. She sticks to her twelve-step program, recites her affirmations, works one day at a time on a humble life devoid of ambition or redemption. How can she have an after when baby Robbie doesn't? Set in the relentless heat the author cleverly brings realism to the pressing issue of climate change as a lived reality. With a stunning development of characters Doyle leads us to challenge our legacy and the consequence of our actions. I LOVED the portrayal of Emma Cormac - the before and after and the journey we take with her. So much of her past and present resonated with me and had me turning every page with renewed vigour. I felt every beat of emotion, repeated every affirmation almost subconsciously and let myself be led along the journey of the parched and ever changing landscape.
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