VICTORIA HANNAN Kokomo. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, Victoria Hannan’s debut is a rewarding journey.
Victoria Hannan’s Kokomo takes us deep into the conundrum of love, with its heartbreak and trauma. In this, her first novel, Hannan explores the different ways we love, asking how much can we bear before we break: ‘But what is love if not the inability to abandon hope?’
Mina has abruptly returned to Australia after a seven-year absence in London, dropping a fast-paced life with a career in advertising and a nascent love affair with a colleague, Jack, to get on the next plane home. The reason for her return is a call from Kira, her childhood best friend who tells Mina that Elaine, Mina’s mother, has ‘left the house’. An agoraphobic, Elaine has confined herself there for 12 years but Kira, whose parents still live across the road, has just seen her in the street.
Hannan’s writing is strong and original. She throws curve balls, demanding that her reader pay attention. In an arresting opening, she brings us Jack’s penis — ‘so tall and pink, a soldier standing to attention, a ballerina in first position’. Endearing in a Bridget Jones way, but with none of its coyness, she presents women as sexual beings with urgent and real needs, as well as desires.
As Mina reacquaints herself with her home town, renewing old friendships and memories, she looks for answers to the mystery of her mother’s life. After seven years away, the first thing her mother says is, ‘I didn’t ask you to come.’ When she turns back to the muted television, ‘Mina’s whole body’ sags and the heartbreak is palpable. Hannon shows the trauma of caring for a loved one with a mental illness. She says:
‘I still try. I try to show her how good it is to be out in the world, show her everything she’s missing out on. But it’s not enough. Nothing I do is enough.’
And the reader gets a glimpse of the loneliness of a life that nobody understands. Her old boyfriend tells her to stop feeling sorry for herself: ‘It’s boring.’
Mina wonders what would have happened if she had broken the rules, quit everything, stayed in bed — something that has appealed to all of us at some time. But this is the catch-22. Is it madness to try to escape? Or are those who do their own thing the sane ones? Elaine’s story is not so unusual; she just took it further than most. Elaine’s longing for a different life, an impossible life, is in Hannan’s title, Kokomo, from the Beach Boys song about escape.
Another key theme is the stress of digital connectivity, where communication has become either immediate, or worthless. The Insta world, where ‘a double tap had become an easy substitute for friendship’, is revealed as a fraud. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we will. The sheer callousness of human behaviour is on display and, at times, seems beyond belief. Not one colleague contacts Mina to find out if she’s OK, not even Jack.
… as she watched the screen three little dots appeared in a grey bubble underneath it. He was typing. He was replying. She watched them move, a gradient of storm clouds….They stopped moving. They started moving. She watched the little dots, one two three one two three, his fingers typing, his fingers, his fingers.
The dots disappeared. She stared at her phone screen until it went dark. She pressed the home button and it woke again but there was nothing. Nothing but this rising tide, this howling wind.
Hannon’s dialogue is always finely tuned, whether conveying Mina’s banter with her friends, or her mother’s brittleness, and the language is lovely throughout. Her originality took my breath away: ‘For most of her life, Elaine had felt like an escaped helium balloon in a shopping centre.’ Twisting, climbing higher, but thwarted. Deflating.
We cheer Mina on. Hardworking, searching constantly, her reward must surely be coming, whether in the comeuppance of her entitled male colleagues, or in getting some answers, finally. It is a rewarding journey to find out.
Victoria Hannan Kokomo Hachette 2020 PB 304pp $32.99
Jessica Stewart is a freelance writer and editor. She can be found at www.yourseconddraft.com where she writes about editing, vagaries of the English language and books she’s loved.
You can buy Kokomo 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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Thank you Jessica Stewart for a rivetting review.
Not only does Kokomo seem a very interesting book, but the author Victoria Hannon a thrilling person.
Being in lockdown here in the Philippines, I have whole days available for research.
Victoria Hannon, whose life stretches from Melbourne to Iceland, New York, Brazil and even Tasmania, is well worth the effort.
Her sensual metaphors revive dormant memories … “a soldier standing to attention, a ballerina in the first position”.
Rising 80, one needs a nudge from inspired writers like Ms Hannon.
Again, thank you.
Sounds like a fascinating read!