‘Now I eat roadkill.’
Ingvar has been walking for three years. He doesn’t speak, avoids towns wherever he can and while he isn’t sure why he is walking, he knows that he must keep going. If he needs to communicate, he writes notes. And to begin with, we gradually learn more about Ingvar from the diary he keeps. He is acutely aware of his surroundings.
Ingvar comes to a remote tropical valley. Here he meets Hilda, a recently widowed woman, doing the best she can to manage the property she once shared with her husband Col. There are others living in the valley as well, or in the nearby township, who will also (albeit briefly) become part of Ingvar’s life. For Ingvar stops in this valley, for a while: something has drawn him there. Hilda agrees that he can stay in the rundown banana shed on her property. In return, he does some work for her.
Gradually Ingvar’s story and the cause of his distress unfolds. He is restless and unable to settle. In his walking he has met both kindness and abuse.
Two lonely people. Hilda chats with her dead husband, Ingvar observes his surroundings but tries to remain detached. We learn, together with Hilda, about what has driven Ingvar to walk. He starts talking again, communicating with Mick and his mates, collecting ticks with Hilda, and meeting Ginger and her mother, Bev.
‘Maybe fiction is just a rehearsal for real life, he thought. The more you experience, the less possibility or less desire there is to discover new things on the page. Or maybe I’ve lost the capacity to savour anything new.’
I could wish for a happy ending and, perhaps, for Ingvar there might be. But somehow, I doubt it. As the story closes, still overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, Ingvar is moving on. Can he ever find peace?
This novel grabbed my attention and held it from beginning to end. Guilt, kindness, loneliness, and savagery each have a part in the story. Mr Stewart makes both people and place come to life, and both are still occupying space in my mind.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Tasmanian Bibliophile @Large 