 Book Reviews
with Robin Osborne
Salt Rain
By Sarah Armstrong
Allen & Unwin $21.95
 Set in the hinterland of the far north coast during a rainy season, this debut novel by local writer (and yoga teacher) Sarah Armstrong is a coming-of-age story about 14-year-old Allie whose Bohemian mother would never reveal the identity of the girl's father.
At the core of this confronting tale lies the inappropriate crossing of personal boundaries, mostly sexual ones, and it is not an easy book to review without revealing the genuinely 'dark secret' around which the plot revolves.
The narrative spans several months in Allie's life - that include her reaching puberty - after the death of mother Mae who fled to Sydney after falling pregnant to a man whose name she dared not disclose.
There was a strong rumour he was a hot-air balloon operator at country shows, an itinerant with whom she managed a brief liaison despite her close, but unconsummated, friendship with Saul, the son of a local dairy farmer.
After Mae drowns in Sydney Harbour, intentionally, it seems, Allie returns to the North Coast with her aunt Julia, the only one knowing what happened fourteen years earlier.
As the wet deluges the community, Allie struggles to make sense of her mother's past and her own present, eventually tracking down Saul, now in his late thirties, unmarried and still living locally. Could he be her father?
"Why did you fall out of love with her?", she asks. "Is that what she told you?" he replies. "It's not how I'd describe it."
Almost stalking him in pursuit of information, the teenager does what her mother might or might not have done, and has sex with the older man - 'When she leaned forward and kissed him, he pulled back for a second, then there was the soft muscle of his lips moving against hers...' - but when their transgression is discovered by Julia, no wowser but suitably appalled, the ensuing storm matches the weather.
Soon, it is revealed who Allie's father was, and, importantly, what circumstances had led Mae to pretend otherwise, move to Sydney and endure an abusive relationship that prompted her to end her own life.
First-time author Armstrong, a former ABC journalist who 'seachanged' to Byron Shire, has captured the tragedy with conviction and charm. The book will be launched on Friday 30 July at the Byron Bay Writers Festival. Details on the Net at www.byronbaywritersfestival.com.
- Thanks to Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore for supporting this column.
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