Ellen van Neerven

Ellen Van Neerven is one of a group of distinctive young Australian voices emerging in our literature. As a queer, indigenous woman, her writing can evoke strong feelings of vulnerability and separation from family, culture and love.

This book is structured in three sections. The first, Heat, contains stories of multiple generations of the Kresinger family, who include in their number the almost mythical and mysterious Pearl.

The Light section contains stories about the impact of poverty and violence on families and the stresses that ensue. These stories have a much harder and grittier edge than those in Heat.

There is a middle section called Water that is quite different to the rest. This section is set in the future, where an indigenous woman accepts a government job to help clear a newly-discovered species of plantpeople away from their lands in order to make way for a major development. The parallels with what was done to her own people in the past are clear, and this leads to some quite conflicted feelings. I liked this section the most; it is beautifully written and the premise is both clever and original. Indeed, I liked nearly all of these stories, and can certainly recommend Ellen Van Neerven as a writer to look out for.
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