In her novel SAFE HAVEN (Ultimo Press 2024), author Shankari Chandran combines a crime story with the themes that characterised her previous book, CHAI TIME AT CINNAMON GARDENS, winner of The Miles Franklin Award. Those themes include refugees, displacement, immigration and the idea of Home.
While CHAI TIME was set in a nursing home and consequently also addressed the issue of aging, SAFE HAVEN is set in an off-shore detention centre, and so adds the timely topics of asylum seekers, Australia’s refugee policies, the operation of ‘detention centres’ by private security firms, mental health problems related to confinement and the restriction of basic freedoms, arbitrary punishment, isolation, and of course the horrific circumstances of conflict that force people to make that terrible choice to risk their lives by getting on a boat in the first place, in an attempt to find safe haven in another country.
Chandran explores all of these issues in a raw, compassionate, intelligent expose of the lives of all the people associated with this complex issue – those seeking safety, people who have been placed in temporary visas in the community, those being paid to guard refugees on off-shore islands, and police and federal law enforcement officers struggling to maintain authority against a huge privately run organisation which basically makes its own rules.
There is a large cast of characters. Sister Fina (along with many others) was rescued by a Norwegian ship after her dodgy ‘people-trafficking’ boat began sinking en route to Australia from Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, many lives were lost. Fina has begun a new life in a rural community, where she has made friends and connections, and makes a huge contribution to her local area. But when she speaks out to the media about abuses, the powers that be make an example of her by arresting her, revoking her visa and sending her to Port Camden detention centre, a remote island outpost.
This part of the story is inspired by Priya and Nadesalingam Murugappan and their children, the ‘Biloela family’ featured often in the news over recent years, beloved by their local community which set up a media and fundraising campaign to demand their return. Chandran says she wrote this book to try to ‘understand what lies behind our detention policies, and the strength of Australians who fight against it’, adding it is ‘one of the many contradictions of our country’.
And this she does very well. The characters are engaging and well-drawn, with believable backstories, motivations and histories. The key relationships in the novel are warm and relatable. I especially loved Fina’s friendship with Magnus, the Norwegian sea captain, and her special caring role with the young boy Cash. There were several other characters (the investigator Lucky, the doctor, the guards) who did not feel as authentic to me.
While the crime aspect of this novel is interwoven throughout, at times I felt the book should have been more about the crime/s (the suicide of a detained child, and the suicide / murder / accidental death of a security guard) or otherwise should have concentrated on the social inquiry aspects. It seemed that the two narratives, while connected, were diluted somewhat because the author did not concentrate on one or the other. Chandran definitely exhibits craftsmanship and skill when delving into the complicated aspects of social / cultural / political / personal drama around displacement, dispossession, deportation, refugees and detainees. She also deftly compiles the secrets, lies, complicity, allegiances, betrayals and hidden motives that build a good crime story, but I’m not convinced the two entirely mesh together in this case. I feel a more powerful conviction on one aspect or the other would have strengthened the novel.
Nevertheless, Chandran is a writer of talent and beauty, giving readers lush descriptions of place and setting, complex characterisations, interesting and relevant plots and themes that we can all relate to, including most importantly the idea of finding Home, a place of rest and belonging, where people accept and relate to you, and you are able to be at peace.