The Raven's Song

Dust Jacket: Dominated by a raven, wings spread, alighting or taking off. Background of ruined buildings. Two young children in foreground, backs to reader.

Set before the narrative: ‘The Ravened Girl of the Bog – an old local folk song.’ Echoes of sacrificial bog people, excavated in Denmark?

Chapter 1 (9+ pp):  1^st person narration by young, unnamed girl waking up in her room on a chicken farm she runs with her ‘Da’. Language differs from present-day English … e.g. repeated use of ‘honoured’ to describe, e.g. ‘jungle’, ‘land’, ‘river’, ‘world’ – meaning?  ‘Was’ and ‘is’ replace ‘were’ and ‘are’ as plurals in narrator’s idiom.  All communities controlled in her world ….  max. 350 people per 700 hectare unit. No explanations.

Chapter 2 (8 pp): Phoenix (boy), in bed. 3^rd person narration. Dream/nightmare/hallucination – visit by grotesque raven in red sneakers. Phoenix very anxious. ‘Aunt Josie’ rubbishes his visions, but ‘Gran’ celebrates his ‘sixth sense’ as recurring family gift. Raven leaves sack on bed…wet and wriggling contents. Phoenix texts best friend ‘Charlie’ ref. significance of raven’s visit. No illumination.

So The Raven’s Song begins, already opening up questions. The only links are the ravens (dust jacket, folk song and Phoenix’s ‘dream’) and both children waking up to a new day. The 3^rd person narrative in Chapter 2 is close to our current English, while the 1^st person telling in Chapter 1 is marked by differences a reader can’t ignore…n.b. later, an elderly teacher (History enthusiast) wearily corrects ‘was’ to ‘were’ in a student’s speech.

Readers learn that Shelby, Chapter 1’s narrator, lives in a society where pollution, over-population, needless travel and the like are avoided. Cities have been abandoned as unworkable. Clearly, climate change issues have been addressed. Rural, self-supporting life in the 700 hectare units may be less varied, more labour-intensive than our own, but Shelby has been taught about her ancestors’ (our) mistakes and accepts the limitations of life in her community. She seems to be living around a hundred years into our future.

Chapter 2’s Phoenix and his four siblings are much closer to us – maybe only a decade or so beyond our own present.

The startling experiences Shelby and Phoenix confront throughout the novel will surely interest – and excite – today’s thoughtful reader. Inventively imagined accounts of what our descendants might live through as climate change unfolds are not common. Eventually, and ingeniously, the pathways of Shelby and Phoenix cross. The complex, moving consequences of their meeting demanded re-reading – readers may well feel they want to reflect on what has happened to them.

Those readers may also be fascinated to learn how the book evolved. An enquiry by one of the authors on Twitter began things – leading to a potential plot emerging through exchanges between the two award-winning novelists, both living in Australia. In a joint interview online after the book was completed – their first meeting in person – they speak of increasing excitement as creative interplay developed. Each developed the stories of one of the two main protagonists, which are told in alternating chapters. Zana Fraillon says she and Bren MacDibble worked so closely together that it felt as though she had two brains. Certainly, when the stakes could not be higher in the novel’s climax, there’s a sense of an unusual passion driving the writing.  It may be that the complexity of content and narrative makes the book accessible only to the more able in the 10+ range; but it would also surely engage and excite older readers, regardless of age.