Raelke Grimmer, White Noise, UWA Publishing, September 2024, 260 pp., RRP $26.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760802851
This heartfelt coming-of-age novel is set in Darwin (the author is a senior lecturer in creative wrting and linguistics at Charles Darwin University). It follows a year in the life of fifteen-year-old Emma and her father as they negotiate their way through continuing grief over the loss of Emma’s mother (and of course James’ wife) to cancer only two years ago.
Narrated engagingly in the first-person present tense so common to YA fiction, the novel tackles some big and some intriguing issues: the ravages of grief on a family, first love, early teenage friendships among girls, the significance of sporting achievements for girls, and the inner life of someone growing up witn autism, both before and after it has been diagnosed.
I think there is a dual purpose to the portrait of autism in this novel: firstly, and most importantly, it demonstrates that someone diagnosed with autism can be as ordinary, as sensitive, as smart and as vulnerable as anyone else; and further the novel goes to some lengths to make clear what it is in particular that a person who has this condition must contend with. There is, for instance, the utter exhaustion and mental blankness following upon exertion and effort. It can take days to recover from attending a party for instance, or making a supreme effort in sport, or talking to a boy you have a crush on.
Then there is the lack of inner awareness with regard to the body – ‘forgetting’ to eat because hunger doesn’t register, or failing to respond to serious injuries or illness because pain is not an issue. As well, there is the difficulty of noticing and responding apropriately to social cues. Emma’s account of coping with these factors in her life is entirely real and compelling in the novel. The great strength of the novel is in producing a voice and a character we believe in and follow avidly.
I commend this novel for its humane rendering a an adolescent girl about to blossom into early adulthood — and without diminishing any of the considerable challenges ahead for her. Recommended for readers from thirteen to sixteen and onwards.
Reviewed by Kevin Brophy
