A review by ergative
Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings

5.0

 What a superb book! It starts out as a sort of moody tale in a young narrator, keenly aware of how to be good and sweet and tidy and domestic, tells us about her life in a way that makes it clear that something terrible happened to her father and brothers, and her mother is controlling her in some way to make sure she never thinks about it or asks questions or remembers what happens. But of course she does start asking questions, and half the book is about her quest (well, day-trip) to find out what's what. But the other half of the book is this wonderfully skillful interlacing set of local folklore that's also not at all local, but Australian-flavored variants of European folklore that have been brought to Australia and turned native. There's this elegant symmetry between the people, European immigrants who have become local to their areas, and the tales they brought with them, that are recognizable (one of them is clearly a descendent of the Pied Piper of Hamlin) but also undeniably Australian too. And the truth of what happened to this narrator's family lies in the intersection of these tales, which are both folklore and family history, and her own investigations. It's so, so, so good.