KELLY RIMMER The Things We Cannot Say. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
Kelly Rimmer’s fifth novel ranges from family stresses in present-day Florida to uncovering secrets from the darkness of Poland during World War II.
Australian author Kelly Rimmer is establishing herself as a master of gritty journeys of the heart, of families and relationships pushed to their limits by conflict and moral confusions. Best known as a writer of contemporary, high-stakes drama, this time, in The Things We Cannot Say, Rimmer takes us into the past with a complex and intricately woven historical fiction that is every bit as compelling.
In present-day Florida, young mother Alice is caught within a web of competing demands in her family. Her seven-year-old son, Eddie, is the centre of her love but his needs and challenging autistic behaviour take up most of her physical and emotional energy – a situation made all the trickier for them both as he’s largely non-verbal. Her ten-year-old daughter Callie, by contrast, is an overachiever, but no less highly strung; and her husband, Wade, throws himself into to work, keeping the chaos at a distance – threatening the stability of the marriage:
Eddie simply needs a can of soup, or better still, some tubes of Go-Gurt if we can find some with the right label. I have to call Wade. I have to convince him to come from work via a store, and to bring something Eddie can eat, or better still, to come and take Eddie home. The reason I don’t want to is that I already know how this conversation is going to go …
We can hear the constant grinding of gears in Alice’s mind, her aloneness, too, and it’s harrowing.
The match to Alice’s tinderbox is finally struck when her beloved Babcia, her Polish grandmother, suffers a stroke which renders her unable to speak and desperately frustrated as she tries to communicate her final wishes to Alice.
In classic dual timeline style, the narrative breaks here with a leap into the past, taking us into small-town Poland in 1938. Two young lovers, Alina and Tomasz, are just about to plan their wedding when the Nazi regime invades. We know things are going to become impossible for the pair at that point, and there is a predictability to what unfolds, but the detail Rimmer brings to the circumstances of their lives, their separation, and their proximity to Oświęcim – the infamous town of Auschwitz – is clear-eyed:
Sometimes, when I was planting or weeding or harvesting the vegetable field, I’d stand to stretch my aching back, and when I looked to the sky, I’d notice a rising tower of black smoke. At first, this barely caught my attention because there had been smoke on the horizon all the time when the occupation first began. But I gradually noticed that this was different from the smoke that rose when the Nazis destroyed our buildings with fire – because that came and went and moved around, and this odd smoke was always in the exact same place.
Terrible choices must be made by both Tomasz and Alina in the name of resistance and love, and Rimmer skilfully holds back just enough information to keep the reader guessing as to who survives the war and how.
It’s up to Alice, in the present day, to travel to Poland to uncover the mystery of all her grandmother couldn’t say – not only because her grandmother is ill and incapable of speaking but because these memories have been too painful to articulate until now. It takes a great deal of courage for Alice to finally make the decision to go, but only good things can come of the trip and all the confrontations it will bring – not least among them that she must force herself to trust her husband with the kids, especially with Eddie.
There are also some beautiful descriptions of the strange comfort that can come from walking in the footsteps of the ancestors, even when the journey is steeped in pain:
I stare at the house, set against that odd little hill, framed by the thick green woods behind it and the shock of deep blue sky that stretches above. The scent of dust and grass hangs heavily around me, and the breeze stirs my hair. I breathe in that country air, taking it deep into my lungs, as if I can store the memory of it, as if I can take it home with me.
A few small licences are taken with historical detail, which only the most eagle-eyed student of the Holocaust will spot, and there is perhaps a sketchiness to the way the plight of the Jews in the story is explored. A reader without a good knowledge of the history of anti-Semitism in Europe might be left with the impression that Germans imposed the idea upon vulnerable Poles. America’s presentation as a beacon of peace for Jews is also a little questionable with anti-Semitism again on the rise today. But this novel does not attempt to retell the Jewish experience; its primary intention, historically at least, is to cast light into the darkness of those darkest days for ordinary Poles, and it does that very well.
The Things We Cannot Say is a tale told by an author who cares about her subjects and the pressures that shape their lives. Rimmer is fearless in tackling human frailties and showing us at our worst – and how the best can shine out from that forge. Her characters are everyday people whose stories are free of the more outlandish plot twists of popular historical page-turners, and they learn more than secrets: they learn something about themselves.
It’s this intrepid thoughtfulness that elevates Rimmer’s writing above the commercial fiction crowd, demonstrating why she is an Australian star on the rise across the globe.
Kelly Rimmer The Things We Cannot Say Hachette 2019 PB 434pp $29.99
Kim Kelly is the author of eight novels, including the acclaimed Wild Chicory and The Blue Mile. Her latest, the novella Sunshine, is published this month. Find out more about Kim at: kimkellyauthor.com
You can buy The Things We Cannot Say from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW here or you can buy it from Booktopia here.
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