by Deborah ForsterVintage
Set in Footscray, Deborah Forster's home territory as a child, The Book Of Emmett is a novel with a great sense of place. Largely autobiographical, the novel tells the story of the Brown family and in particular the life story of Emmett Brown, patriarch and his dark, violent nature. This is a story of domestic violence and its effect on adults and children. Emmett is a man of brooding passions, whose rages terrorize his wife and children. The book traces the complex relationships between brothers and sisters and the love and pain that evolve between them. Deborah Forster has commented that Footscray is like an extra character in the novel, and she delights in recounting details of the suburb and culture of her childhood. The Book Of Emmett is a novel about love, hope and survival; at Emmett's funeral his children realise that they loved and learned from their father, who as a younger man had recited poetry to his wife but whose failures in later life had taken him back to his own abusive childhood with terrible consequences for all of them. Beautifully written, this is a book which will live long in the reader's memory.
by Chris
