Nine Days by Toni Jordan, Text Publishing, $29.99.
From her exciting debut novel Addition, through the quirkily funny Fall Girl and now Nine Days, Toni Jordan loves to explore love’s journey from subtle hits of ignited passion, through winding paths of romantic liaisons.
Yet this third book sees the author take a brave leap into a much more complex world of multiple characters with sharply executed interweaving tales in different time zones.
This is Toni really stretching her literary wings, and while she doesn’t always soar, there are plenty of beautifully drawn cameos in here, underpinned by a linking plot that adds an edge of thrilling detective-style guesswork to make this the Melbourne-based author’s most ambitious and engrossing book yet.
It is set in the streets of Richmond, and while locals will delight in all their haunts etched in a palpably realistic light, it is a universal yarn.
“It’d be the same story if it was set in West End or Balmain or Subiaco or Port Adelaide,” says Toni — and she’s right. These characters leap from the page and really speak to us.
As the title says, the book charts nine days, told in first person by a different character, each of whom is part of, or connected to, the Westaway family.
First up is Kip, who is really the lynchpin. It is 1939, with the world on the brink of war and Kip is a stablehand — having quit school to help support his family following the death of his father, falling from a tram while drunk.
Kip has a strained relationship with his twin brother, Francis, but a very special one with his sister, Connie.
As we flit forward and back between this generation of Westaways and those who follow, Kip and Connie’s destinies unfold with a poignancy that creeps up and grabs your heart.
About the author: Toni Jordan
Born and raised in Brisbane where her mum worked in the local TAB, Toni Jordan, now 45, was a molecular biologist who quit to write fiction. She is fuelled by a passion for “sitting down and wrangling sentences,” and her debut novel Addition was long-listed for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
Toni’s characters “lurk in my subconscious until they’re needed,” and while destiny does play a part in their paths, she believes that “life makes sense only in retrospect”.
Nine Days is set in Melbourne, where Toni lives with her “wonderful husband Robert”. Her next project? “No idea!” she says. “I still can’t get the Westaways out of my head.”
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