Lucy Treloar is one of Australia’s finest current writers and her third novel, Days of Innocence and Wonder (Picador 2023) demonstrates her ability to experiment with different genres. Her first novel was historical fiction, her second dystopian fiction, and this recent novel is contemporary literary crime, moving between several timeframes. The one thing that all Treloar’s novels have in common is the beautiful literary writing. Every sentence is structured with care and thoughtfulness, every theme is explored with curiosity and compassion, and while there is always a page-turning plot, the focus of the narrative is on the characters and the detailed depictions of landscape and place.
Days of Innocence and Wonder is narrated by an unknown person; Treloar leaves it to the reader to guess who it might be. And although we may think it obvious, the conclusion offers some different suggestions, which casts the book in a different light.
The book centres on Till, now 23, who suffered a terrible trauma as a five-year-old when her childhood best friend, known only in Till’s mind as ‘E’, was abducted by a man who attempted to take both children. Till (also a new name, as her real name evokes too many painful memories), has lived for two decades with loss, guilt and sadness. She and her greyhound, Birdy, drive away from her past with not much of a plan except to get away from her memories. She finds sanctuary of a sort in a deserted outback town, where she shelters in an abandoned railway station and begins to construct the pieces of a new life. But when danger threatens not only her but the people she has become close to, Till must decide whether to keep running, or to finally face her worst fears, as her past comes closing in.
There are so many aspects of writing that Treloar does particularly well: the relationship between her protagonist and their dog (there is always a dog); the glorious and evocative description of place; the questioning of what has happened on that Country years and decades and centuries earlier; the construction of complex, flawed and complicated characters that seem as real as if they could jump out of the pages; a compelling plot that pulls the reader gently but steadily forward as the stakes become higher and the danger more implicit; her ability to reconcile readers with characters. These are common in all her books. The use of the unknown narrator who speaks to the reader directly in Days of Innocence and Wonder gives this book a different twist and Treloar pulls it off expertly. And the crime/s in this book too are thrilling and shocking and unexpected, despite being presented in a literary way.
If you haven’t yet discovered Lucy Treloar’s writing, you could start with any of her books, Salt Creek or Wolfe Island, or this most recent one, as they are all individual and very different. But I guarantee that once you read one, you will want to discover the others, as her writing style is so evocative and compelling and simply beautiful to read.