A curious way to think about character
'Shoulds' versus 'wants' in three recent Australian stories
In the last few weeks I’ve read two novels and a memoir that all dealt with quiet battles fought behind closed doors. And after a conversation this week about the ongoing tension most of us experience between what we should do and what we want for ourselves, I realised that all three works share this central tension (maybe all good stories do?)
The first was a recently published memoir by children’s writer Julie Lawrinson, How to Avoid a Happy Life from Fremantle Press.
As a child and teenager, Julie’s biggest should is to trust and obey her elders. Yet as a reader, you want to reach into the pages, pluck her out and take her far away from them. Another should is trusting the healthcare system (I won’t say too much here because it’s worth reading) while desperately wanting to speak up in a situation where she has little power. Set in Perth in the 90s onwards, it has an incredible sense of place, particularly in its evocation of the port town of Fremantle, pre-gentrification.
The second was The Glass House by Brooke Dunnell. Set between Perth and Melbourne, it tells the story of Julia Lambett, who has headed home from Melbourne to Perth to pack up her father’s house and move him into aged care. There, she meets up with a tricky friend from her past and is drawn back into schoolyard dynamics and uneasy memories. Her father has adopted a dog and is resisting moving, and with every moment her life in Melbourne feels less solid. As with Lawrinson’s memoir, there is an expectation that Julie should accept her assigned roles - the loyal friend, the uncomplaining daughter. What she wants, though, is more complicated. And it’s this conflict that drives the narrative towards its beautifully realised ending.
Finally, I read Body Friend by Katherine Brabon. This is a book about autoimmune illness and the healing power of water. The main character is recovering from surgery for an unspecified illness, and takes up hydrotherapy. There, she meets two women. Frida is active and energetic, encouraging her back into the world, while Sylvia, more accepting of illness, insists that she rest. These body friends are half real and half manifestations of the illness and its demands on a person.
Brabon captures the repetitive and limiting nature of chronic illness with some beautiful observations. The shoulds here are work, going out, pushing yourself to do more, even as your body has other wants and needs. This time, the conflict is internal.
Should versus want in fiction
Writing itself, simply getting things on the page, is a way to think through what you should do versus what you want to, especially if the shoulds are taking up all the oxygen. And in writing fiction, it could be a way to deepen your characters beyond the usual facial features and handbag contents. What are their deepest desires, and what is working against them? Unique to every character, and sometimes insurmountable, but in any story, from any place, it’s these two things that give a story its tension.
Everything else
Our house hunt continues and I’m currently wondering how all my stuff is doing in its shipping container down in Canning Vale. Also what was it? I honestly can’t remember half of it, although I did spot a familiar mug at the school canteen and had a small twinge. It goes to show how pointless most stuff is, if you’ve more or less forgotten it in six months. I might sell it all off at Melville Markets (apart from the books) and buy a flat-pack infra-red sauna with the proceeds.
Cooking this week has been mid, as my kids say. I did have one modest success – thin spaghetti with Barillo Pesto Genovese and some broccoli thrown in for the last five minutes. I also met up with a childhood friend who described to me in granular detail a rocky road he made for his sister’s morning tea, which I will do in the holidays with my kids (Recipe Tin, obviously, we are fervent fans.)
It was also winter solstice this week here in Perth, which I forgot to celebrate. In Berlin I embraced winter solstice with every cell of my pagan and possibly Neanderthal soul, because it meant two extra minutes of light a day afterwards. I’d drag the kids into the forest and make us collect greenery for the table of our winter solstice dinner and one year we found this red berry tree and I went completely spare.
I’m Zoe Deleuil. I'm a freelance writer, author and copywriter. My psychological suspense novel, The Night Village, about a new mother and her unsettling house guest, is out now (and if you look closely at the cover you might recognise the building.)