Paula Xiberras
A little while ago I talked to Robyn Mundy about her new novel ‘Wildlight’.
The novel has close connections with Tasmania … being set on Maatsuyker Island.
One of the key metaphors that Robyn employs involves the cray fisher Tom recounting how the crays need to shed their skins to grow.
This is applicable to characters in the novel.
For Steph, the main protagonist and her family relocating to Maatsuyker seems a way to recapture an earlier more simple life and in that niche of nostalgia to shut out the real, confusing and complex world, a world that saw Stephanie lose her twin brother.
The family may have removed themselves from the world and with It, most forms of modern communication including to Steph’s horror, all online contact.
Stephanie does create a new contact, of the old fashioned king, with Tom the young cray fisher as she finds maturity in her lighthouse duties. The lighthouse symbol is important to the story of a family that has momentarily lost its way and in danger of crashing on the rocky shores. Steph and Tom, with so much of their story centred at the lighthouse extend the metaphor as they provide a much needed beacon for each other.
The book is dense with literary devices, symbols and metaphors and gives us an ambiguous ending that involves Stephanie returning to the island but then leaving again as she continues to shed the old skin and grow anew. It is left to the reader to conclude what Stephanie’s future holds.
‘Wildlight’ is out now published by Pan Macmillan Australia. You can read more and purchase the book here http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781743537909.
Robyn Mundy will be discussing her book at Fullers Bookshop on July 7 at 5.30pm.
