Review: All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld
Tia
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A painful, confronting mystery.
This is the brutal story of Jake, a woman trying to escape the past.
Jake tells her story through two timelines.
One timeline is set in the present, where Jake lives alone on an isolated farm in Britain. Someone, or something, starts killing her sheep.
The other timeline is set in the past when Jake lived in Australia. She works as a sheep shearer on rural stations.
Each timeline has its own mysteries, the details of which are gradually revealed as we progress through the book. The pacing of the story is incredible and kept me holding on as the tension grew and grew.
The writing style is terse and pragmatic. It may not be beautiful in the traditional kind of way, but it definitely fits with Jake. It also challenges what our expectations are for female writers, and their characters.
We like to assume books by female authors will be about romance, packed with flowery prose, and a dainty protagonist. But what do women actually write about?
In ‘All the Birds, Singing’, the protagonist is tall and muscular. She shears sheep, drives trucks, and shoots guns. She has been deeply traumatised by events in her past, and is suspicious of new relationships. She doesn’t feel safe with people, and only feels marginally safer alone.
Society might like to make-believe that women have fanciful dreams of romance, when actually women are having nightmares about violence and abuse.
The book uses many horror story elements to build mystery and fear, such as Jake’s visions of a ghostly creature. The landscape is desolate and deathly, strewn with rotting sheep carcasses. But the most terrifying aspect of ‘All the Birds, Singing’, is the evocative depiction of masculine culture in Australia.
The book gives disturbing insights into Australian misogyny, like the shroud of the ‘good bloke‘ title which shields men from criticism about their behaviour. He may be threatening you, he may even hurt you, but he’s a ‘good bloke’.
Acts of larrikinism*, such as a prank involving private parts and flour, are deeply unsettling when you’re the only woman on a rural station surrounded by cackling men.
Who knew the Outback and its grisly characters could be the perfect ingredients for a Gothic horror?
The process of coming to understand Jake’s past was so intense and painful but I could not look away.
I feel like I need therapy after reading this book.
‘All the Birds, Singing’ deserves every single award it has received.
5 out of 5 painful scars.
*Larrikin: This term refers to someone who acts inappropriately for laughs, and is almost exclusively used to refer to males. Being a larrikin is often proudly lauded as some kind of pinnacle of Australian culture. It can be used as a fun euphemism to downplay sexism, racism, and homophobia. How Australian.
FYI: ‘All the Birds, Singing’ contains an abusive relationship and sexual degradation.
