by Andrew Croome Allen & Unwin
Document Z is last year’s Australian / Vogel Literary Prize winner. Written by Andrew Croome, it is a political tale of espionage, intrigue and betrayal. It tells the story of the defection of the Petrovs, Vladimir and Evdokia, from Soviet Russia to Australia in Canberra
The story is a documented part of Australian history. It was covered extensively in the media at the time. However, in Document Z, the author converts ASIO documents, first-hand accounts and 1950s and 60s media hysteria into a cohesive whole. The novel was written over three years as part of a PhD. Andrew Croome’s exhaustive research is combined with a keen sense of literary intuition. The story is interesting enough in its own right but Croome’s ability to get right inside the minds of the main players on both sides and those on the sidelines adds a whole other dimension to the reader’s experience. The story moves along at a steady pace; a well-structured plot peppered with stop-and-think insights into the mental states of various characters and sharp observations that confirm in the author that all-important writer’s quality of Empathy. While much of the novel’s subject matter is born of research, it is the imagined and the embellished in it that both successfully announces Croome’s arrival on the literary scene and brings out the humanity behind a story that without this treatment could so easily have been consigned to mere factual records, transcripts and the dusty pages of history. In Document Z, the Petrovs and their story are very much alive. Croome even gives an ASIO agent a pulse. Who knew? Brilliant from start to finish!
This is a review from The Weekend Australian
by Simon
