Mystery, misery and unease … debut novel’s stormy parable flags new world order
Ann Dombroski’s debut psychological thriller stretches the imagination as it chronicles a dark parable that does not bode well for our times.
At age 40, Alice’s biological clock is ticking. She longs for a baby but is stymied by crippling problems, like all her loved ones.
Her husband Daniel is serving a life sentence in a high-security prison for supposedly masterminding a catastrophic accident involving Sydney’s new transport system of “sliders”, in which seven people lost their lives.
Everyone in Alice’s social circle advises her to move on but she can’t shake her loyalty to Daniel and belief in his innocence. Then there’s sweet-talking Lovell, Daniel’s best friend, waiting in the wings for that moment when Alice turns to him in despair.
Alice has frozen her eggs in a futuristic version of IVF, but there are state-imposed rules she can’t fathom how to bypass. Despite her job as a doctor harvesting body parts for transplant operations, she is hardly able to manage the mortgage payments let alone the prohibitive costs associated with embryo transfer or a lawyer to prove Daniel’s innocence.
Mystery, misery and unease stalk the pages of Sydney author Ann Dombroski’s haunting debut novel, After the Great Storm. Brushed with dystopic elements in the vein of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the setting is Sydney, 50 years in the future. Climate change has left an indelible mark, altered the world order and caused a massive schism between the haves and have-nots. Corporate greed rules. Nothing is as it seems.
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New modes of travel include an eEVTOL-taxi and an autopod. It’s a world of rooftop farms, a proliferation of e-bikes, yurts, artificial beaches and, Alice discovers to her cost, unethical experimentation on humans.
If people are out and about and a storm is brewing, seeking safety in underground shelters is an absolute must. The stark futuristic landscape flavours the shadowy convoluted narrative. While this brave new world is never fully fleshed out it is bleak, rule bound and inequitable, whereas Alice is generous and has old-world empathy, warmth and a forgiving nature.
There are shocking, vividly painted moments …
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Dombroski’s prize-winning fiction has appeared in literary journals and anthologies. Her voice is direct and engaging and the prose rolls along with a compulsive rhythm and clever pacing. Deftly, the author spins a thought-provoking dance of puzzlement and paranoia.
There are shocking, vividly painted moments. When Alice meets T, a victim of transgenics, on the steps leading to her front porch, the encounter is irresistibly drawn: The black material was a membrane, like the wings of a flying fox, and there was a rhythmic movement, as with breathing. Then, from under the membrane, a head emerged and turning, revealed a dirt-streaked human face.
Alice is repelled by this winged hybrid but despite misgivings she takes T into her house and cares for her. But this kindness places Alice under surveillance. T agreed to her disfiguring operation in return for her freedom.
Things take an even more threatening turn when Daniel directs Alice to secure evidence to clear his name. Alice’s integrity is severely tested as she investigates Daniel’s leads and ventures into a murky world of bribes and corruption.
While Dombroski paints a dystopic world with a light touch, the characters are weighed down by questions of personal morality, ethics and loyalty. What choices are there within the constraints of an authoritarian government, poverty and climate crisis?
There are junctures when it is hard to suspend disbelief but this engrossing and imaginative debut novel is a timely, provocative and disturbing parable for our times.
After the Great Storm by Ann Dombroski, Transit Lounge, $32.99, transitlounge.com.au
Gillian Wills latest book is Big Music, Hawkeye Publishing.