from the editor's desk
Review of ‘Salt River Road’ by Molly Schmidt
Salt River Road. Molly Schmidt. Fremantle Press, 2023. RRP $32.99, 288pp, ISBN: 9781760992620.
Jen Bowden
Grief comes in many forms, but when it arrives it often brings with it an undoing of the self—something that lays bare our humanity.
The distinctive experience of grief is at the heart of Molly Schmidt’s stunning debut, which is the saga of the Tetley family’s troubles. Five Tetley siblings are left reeling and fending for themselves following their mother’s death, while their father slips into a mournful uselessness. However, when Noongar Elders Patsy and Herbert welcome sixteen-year-old Rose Tetley into their lives, their kindness sparks a journey for the bereaved teen that will go some way to healing her wounds.
Healing is a significant part of this book, not just for its characters but also for the author and those she encountered in the process of writing it. The novel was created in close collaboration with Noongar Elders from Albany, with the goal of using storytelling to actively pursue reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples.
Schmidt has written a quietly beautiful book that, though filled with the actions of a family of bereaved teenagers, maintains a soft innocence. Told mostly through the eyes of Rose and her brother Frank, the narrative is packed with the personal manifestations of grief, giving insight into each character’s understanding of life and death, pulling the reader along through the unravelling of their family and the hopeful move towards reconnection at the end.
The vibrancy of the narrative comes from Schmidt’s prose, which is poetic (and literally so, in some places). Her language is alive with the beauty of ordinary things, positioning more mundane actions against an undercurrent of death in order to make them seem lively and significant. This is clear in Frank’s narration as he rambles through the world outside the family home, desperate to escape his sadness, ‘Bare feet along the jetty, heel to toe. The smell of salt and fish guts, the breeze on my face. I sit on the edge, swing my legs. Fuck, everything just hurts’ (56). These words are simple on their own. Yet their rhythm carries the reader through the scene, the ‘swing’ of the legs and pace of ‘heel to toe’ providing a heartbeat that contrasts the deep hurt Frank is feeling.
Though Rose is sixteen in the story, the death of her mother renders her almost an infant. Frank’s reaction was to run from the family home, and Rose herself is often physically unable to say what she’s feeling, even to her best friend Jenna:
The words tumble and feel strange in my mouth, as if English isn’t my first language. I tell her about the funeral, about Aunt Lisa, about Dad spewing on Nonna. My sentences start and stop, wrap around each other and fragment. At one point I swallow a fly and Jenna smacks me on the back till I hack it up and we both giggle, the weight of the conversation making us hysterical. Then Jenna clears her throat, and her face turns serious again. I wipe my eyes and keep going. As I’m talking, I realise I don’t know where to stop. There’s no end to the story. (65)
Rose unravels in her grief, uncertain of what she’s saying and whether she can say it. Through Rose we get a sense of the pervasiveness of death and grief, as well as the strictures of both: she describes what is expected, allowed and socially understood as part of losing someone close to her. But through her friendship with Patsy and Herbert she comes to know that mourning is a uniquely personal experience, and the space they offer her to understand and reflect on that enables Rose to find her own way through this difficult process without being bound by the expectations of others.
Frank’s response is more physical than emotional or verbal. He turns to random acts of vandalism, violence and crime to try and feel something among the numbness of loss. He describes going surfing after being told by a doctor that his mother would probably not make it, and says that, in the water, he ‘begged’ the ocean to take him. ‘Instead,’ he says, ‘I washed up on the beach, chucking up saltwater. Half my board was strewn on the sand, the other thrashed around in the whitewash. The two pieces rest like headstones in the corner of the shed’ (164).
Death is everywhere Frank looks: in himself, who he once was and in the world around him—the tombstone of his surfboard is a symbol of the death of part of himself as well as of his mother. The physical world—the vast beaches and vibrant forests of southern Western Australia—are rendered on the page in beautiful detail by Schmidt, whose appreciation for Country shines through her characters’ responses to the world around them.
Salt River Road is an impressive and original debut from an author who no doubt has a long and successful career ahead. It will tear your guts out and set your heart soaring at the same time, and is worth every second of reading. It is a testament to the sheer power of good storytelling and opens the door for further exploration of reconciliation through artistic endeavours.
Jen is a writer, editor, podcast host and event moderator based in Brisbane. She lived and worked in Edinburgh, Scotland and has written for a number of UK newspapers and magazines including The List, The Guardian and The Scotsman. She previously worked for Fremantle Press and now teaches writing, journalism and publishing at Curtin University, where she’s also doing her PhD in creative writing.
