The striking feature of this book is how much of herself Sales reveals as she takes a close look at a number of people blindsided by the ‘poison darts of fate’.
A kind-looking grey-haired man sitting across from me downstairs at the National Library of Australia was watching with interest as I stuck post-it notes on various pages of Leigh Sales’s latest book, Any Ordinary Day.
‘Is it any good?’ he asked, as I rose to leave.
‘Yes of course,’ I ventured. Anything the Walkley Award-winning journalist wrote was bound to be, at the very least, good. Then I sat down again, because there was more I could say. Already I had picked up that this refined-looking gentleman harboured reservations about the high-profile presenter of the 7:30 Report.
‘A different Sales emerges in this book,’ said I, acknowledging her attack-dog interviewing style, and the intellectuality of her 2009 essay On Doubt. ‘You wouldn’t think it,’ I continued, ‘seeing her on television, going for the jugular, but she really is a bit of a sook.’
‘Hmmm,’ mumbled Library Man, unconvinced.
Having pressed my case as far as was wise, and enlightened him about the existence of the NRB, I took my leave, sailing off into the sunset with my copy of Any Ordinary Day sporting different-coloured post-it notes designating potential quotable quotes.
If I overstated my case with Library Man, it was because one of the striking features of Sales’s book is how much of herself she reveals. There is much more to her than the journalist who can be, by her own admission, ‘as mercenary and reptilian as anyone’. Over the last four years she has suffered many things, and these things have cracked her open and made her see the world differently. Happily, though, for her many fans, there are continuities. In her essay On Doubt, which was published in 2009, Sales cited the 11th-century French philosopher and theologian Pierre Abelard, who said that ‘the beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth’.
Sales the doubter and the seeker of truth is still very much alive and in evidence in this book. At the beginning of Any Ordinary Day, she spells out what drove her, at a time in her life when she was feeling most out of control and vulnerable, to research a book on ‘blindsides, resilience, and what happens after the worst day of your life’:
What prompted me to begin writing this book was the thought of what might happen if I walked towards what I most feared, rather than in the opposite direction. What would I learn if I spent time with people who had lived through some of the things I most worried about happening to me or my family? What could the newest scientific research teach me about the way the human brain comes to terms with such things? The novelist Iris Murdoch once wrote that paying attention is a moral act. To me, paying close attention to these kinds of tragedies felt like staring at the sun. It scared me to do it, yet I wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t look away.
So, this is what we get in this book: Sales taking a close look at the stories of a number of people who have, like her, been blindsided by what she refers to as the ‘poison darts of fate’. We are privy to interviews with people like Louisa Hope, who was one of the hostages in the Lindt Café siege in December 2014. There is Walter Mikac, whose wife and daughters were killed at Port Arthur, and Stuart Diver, and James Scott, who you may not remember survived being lost in the Himalayas for 43 days. There are others, too. We get to hear more about their blindsides than has hitherto been revealed, but also – and these were the bits I found most compelling – the aftermaths, involving the difficult personal work of coming to terms with a world that has been tipped upside down. Interspersed with interview material are reflections on what research has to teach us about trauma and resilience. There are interviews with priests and detectives, forensic photographers and even one ex-prime minister and one university vice-chancellor.
It is all very interesting and, throughout the work, Sales’s voice rings true and clear: she is not here to offer up answers, and she certainly is not here to be converted to Christianity or to spruik platitudes. She is here, though, to look for commonalities in people’s experiences, and to offer up helpful suggestions where she can. One message that comes through loud and clear is that people need to be less afraid of saying the wrong thing to those who are going through trauma: stop crossing the road to avoid that possibility, people. The other one is the familiar one about smelling the roses. Before the poison darts of fate pierced her own chest, Sales would never have written anything like the following paragraphs but, as she admits in this book, those days are gone:
I wish that through studying all of this, I had some wise scroll to unfurl before you. Even the idea that I wish there was a ‘lesson’ shows how unwilling I still am, like most of us, to sail into the winds of fate head-on. I wish I could tell you how not to be the person who walks into the Lindt Café on the wrong morning, or how not to choose the fatal day to go for a surf. Of course nobody can do that, and if we thought about these things too often, we’d never leave our homes. To live life, we have to take risks, most of which we will never even know we’re taking.
All I can tell you is that life is richer, kinder and safer than the news would have you believe. People are more decent. The things you think you wouldn’t be able to survive, you probably can. You will be okay. There’s really only one lesson to take from all of this and that is to be grateful for the ordinary days and to savour every last moment of them. They’re not so ordinary, really. Hindsight makes them quite magical.
Leigh Sales Any Ordinary Day: Blindsides, resilience and what happens after the worst day of your life Penguin Random House 2018 PB 272pp $34.99
Shelley McInnis finished this review on a magical afternoon in Canberra, which is a much more pleasant place to live than the news would have you believe.
You can buy Any Ordinary Day from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW here.
To see if it is available from Newtown Library, click here.
Tags: 7.30 Report, Leigh | Sales, Pierre | Abelard, Walkley Award
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My literate friends disagree with me on this … but I believe that the punctuation in “Sales’s voice” makes it ugly to read and to hear.
Yes, I know I am technically wrong, but “Sales’voice” is fluent and perfectly understandable.
My version applies to names ending in “s” … as in Prince Charles’ favourite rottweiler.
Does anyone agree with me?
Yes, J. Haswell, I too prefer ‘Sales’ voice’ to ‘Sales’s voice’, but I imagine the reviewer is following the required style guide. Maybe less nitpicking, and more appreciation of the review, and of the book in question, which I was so keen to read about that I didn’t notice the extra sibilance. I have now reserved Any Ordinary Day at my library. Thank you, Shelley McInnis.
Dear Shelley, thank you for responding and ending my literary loneliness.
My earlier comment was in no way intended to reflect on the reviewer … merely a general comment on English grammar.
Being a book-lover and respecter of authors and most reviewers, and a person of little talent, I would be a bloody idiot to launch even mild criticism of those who “have a go”.
This is only the third time I have ventured anywhere into internet comments.
Please don’t slash my new-born confidence.
Apologies to Carol Middleton for confusing her with the reviewer Shelley McInnis.
Old age explains (77) explains it.
At any rate, I think the review is terrific and I would love to read Leigh Sales’ book.
I am an Australian who has spent the past 24 years travelling cheaply around S-E Asia.
Cable TV means the 7.30 Report is often available. I am a fan of Leigh Sales, Shelley McInnis and Carol Middleton.
Can we be friends now?
This review is consonant with other reviews I have seen of the book, and with what I have seen Leigh Sales say on air about it. The review gives a good lead in to what the book is about and why one may wish to read it, which is after all what reviews are for. And it is stylishly written!