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jrmarr's review
5.0
I am not normally one to get through non-fiction so quickly, but this is such a readable book. It is a compelling and often harrowing account of one of the worst days in Victoria's history, Black Saturday. In the end, I'm not sure how much we really learnt from the Churchill fire, but it has given me much to think about - how do we help those most vulnerable? How can we predict and prevent the worst possible actions when there appears to be little motive? How can we assist all who are affected by these actions? It leaves me in an uncomfortable state, but I am so glad I read this fantastic book.
brittanyjoy's review
2.0
Interesting topic, but felt the writing was mostly transcribing reports and statements. Pretty dry throughout with some inconsistent creativity thrown in (ie He continued to draw a truck, wishing he could drive away in it) - these sentences stood out amongst the factual tone making some sections awkward.
tildahlia's review
4.0
What can you say? Hooper can write narrative non-fiction like no other. Her unobtrusive style excellently captured Latrobe Valley vibes and the complexity of the human experience. Not quite the showstopper of The Tall Man, but very readable and thought-provoking nonetheless.
shirley098's review
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
An emotional read, detailing the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia, which killed 173 people and destroyed 2,000 homes. Scope went from recounts by survivors and first responders of the horrific damage and speed in which the flames spread, to the ensuing police investigation and eventual arson trial. While the book was unable to give concrete answers and motivations, it still provided some interesting insight into Brendan Sokaluk, the main suspect, and how difficult it is to navigate life without when on the spectrum and without a proper diagnosis.
Passages that stuck with me:
When embers started drifting in, most of the helpers decided to leave. Then it was just the Jacobs and 21-year-old Nathan Charles, a part-time scaffolder, who felt it was right to stay. They fought the fire that soon arrived for as long as possible before seeking shelter in a homemade bunker under their house. Around 6.30pm, Charles phoned his father, a truck driver just returning to the Valley from an interstate job, who thought Charles sounded like he was saying goodbye. The call dropped out. The father dialled 000, waited on hold for an eternity, then drove to the Hazelwood North firestation and begged the CFA members on duty to help his son. They told him to ring a central number. He felt he would collapse and die himself right there. He rang his partner and said, 'I think I'm about to bury my son.' A text message soon arrived: Dad im dead I love u
And then the phone calls went unanswered. In the middle of the night, David's daughter avoided the police barricade by driving through the plantation's service tracks. She veered up her grandparents' driveway and assumed, in the dark, she'd taken a wrong turn. The house was missing, turned to rubble.
Further east, on Old Callignee Road, were another father and son. Alfred and Scott Frendo, fifty-eight and twenty-seven years old, gave up on the family home they had been trying to defend and fled in their cars. Their two vehicles were later found sitting on burnt steel rims, moored in ash, one and a half kilometres from their house, which remained undamaged.
A woman whose brother died in the fire had lost contact with people because she didn't want to be asked, or have to answer, how she was.
Another woman worried that she would forget her brother's voice and mannerisms.
A man who'd been on the phone to his son-in-law in the moments before the latter's car caught alight asked himself constantly whether he could have done something to change what happened.
A woman would hear her two-year old granddaughter calling out to her dead son, 'Uncle, where are you? Come and play with me.' The child didn't understand why the people around her were weeping, but she would wake in the night calling the young man's name.
A man who'd stood in a local fire station begging firefighters to send help to the house where his son was trapped would hear a song on the radio that his son had once listened to and be brought instantly undone."
The fire kept spreading in this other dimension, burning through memories, and the layers of identity. Aerial photographs had shown a landscape of black. The survivors found themselves still living inside it, daily tasting the ash.
Break things down to their simplest form and then go on. Try to go on. Each day. Start again and go on. For despite this new, full, life, Shirley longs to go home. At night she dreams she is moving through the rooms of her old house and when she wakes it is lost once again.
Passages that stuck with me:
When embers started drifting in, most of the helpers decided to leave. Then it was just the Jacobs and 21-year-old Nathan Charles, a part-time scaffolder, who felt it was right to stay. They fought the fire that soon arrived for as long as possible before seeking shelter in a homemade bunker under their house. Around 6.30pm, Charles phoned his father, a truck driver just returning to the Valley from an interstate job, who thought Charles sounded like he was saying goodbye. The call dropped out. The father dialled 000, waited on hold for an eternity, then drove to the Hazelwood North firestation and begged the CFA members on duty to help his son. They told him to ring a central number. He felt he would collapse and die himself right there. He rang his partner and said, 'I think I'm about to bury my son.' A text message soon arrived: Dad im dead I love u
And then the phone calls went unanswered. In the middle of the night, David's daughter avoided the police barricade by driving through the plantation's service tracks. She veered up her grandparents' driveway and assumed, in the dark, she'd taken a wrong turn. The house was missing, turned to rubble.
Further east, on Old Callignee Road, were another father and son. Alfred and Scott Frendo, fifty-eight and twenty-seven years old, gave up on the family home they had been trying to defend and fled in their cars. Their two vehicles were later found sitting on burnt steel rims, moored in ash, one and a half kilometres from their house, which remained undamaged.
A woman whose brother died in the fire had lost contact with people because she didn't want to be asked, or have to answer, how she was.
Another woman worried that she would forget her brother's voice and mannerisms.
A man who'd been on the phone to his son-in-law in the moments before the latter's car caught alight asked himself constantly whether he could have done something to change what happened.
A woman would hear her two-year old granddaughter calling out to her dead son, 'Uncle, where are you? Come and play with me.' The child didn't understand why the people around her were weeping, but she would wake in the night calling the young man's name.
A man who'd stood in a local fire station begging firefighters to send help to the house where his son was trapped would hear a song on the radio that his son had once listened to and be brought instantly undone."
The fire kept spreading in this other dimension, burning through memories, and the layers of identity. Aerial photographs had shown a landscape of black. The survivors found themselves still living inside it, daily tasting the ash.
Break things down to their simplest form and then go on. Try to go on. Each day. Start again and go on. For despite this new, full, life, Shirley longs to go home. At night she dreams she is moving through the rooms of her old house and when she wakes it is lost once again.
gabrielle_erin's review
3.0
This was an interesting insight into a part of Australian history that I lived through, yet don't know much about. Reading the first hand accounts of the survivors of the Black Saturday bushfires was truly harrowing and gives a new relevance to what we have just faced in December and January of 2019-2020. Considering bushfires are such a normal part of life for most Australians, it's interesting that there isn't more literature on it. Hooper's exploration of Sokaluk's character was so intricate and nuanced at times I felt as if I was speaking to the man himself. I appreciated the conclusion Hooper drew about the motivations behind arson; however there are some moments in the book which represent Autistic people in a misleading way and I thought this could have been given further consideration.
netflix_and_lil's review
4.0
True crime in mainstream culture can very easily turn exploitative, and as someone who remembers reading about the Black Saturday bushfires happening in my country, close to people I loved, I felt this hit a little closer to home than the American serial killer brand of true crime. I liked the way Chloe Hopper wrote about the titular arsonist and hypothesised about his motivations through the cool lens of lawyers and the legal proceedings, sharing his sympathetic history without forcing the reader to necessarily sympathize with him. The book opens on a pretty harrowing recount of the bushfire and lives lost, so your led into the second half with a bias that matched the country when this guy was arrested. It's cleverly paced, harrowing at times and highly informative.