Dorothy Johnson
The title of Damien Wilkins’ novel refers to substances, pills and potions but also to the reactions people set off within each other, and the possibility that they might result in unimaginable consequences. The book concerns a family deeply immersed in the world of medicines and chemicals, as pharmacists, doctors and addicts, and a troubled young couple on the edge of society who come into the life and orbit of family member Don. It is Don’s concern with the sudden reappearance amongst the family of his recalcitrant heroin addict brother Jamie which influences Don’s behaviour.
It is through their faults and failings that Wilkins works his way into the core of his characters. We learn the story from the point of view of each and in turn, see them as they appear to the others. The male characters, perhaps not surprisingly are more realised than the female, with the mother Ruth as the most successfully written of these. Sally, part of the young couple, is physically attractive and vulnerable, an ex heroin addict and mother of a small baby. She is constantly victimised sexually by men and comes dangerously close to being a cliche, someone with much the same traits appearing regularly in what is becoming almost a genre of substance abuse novels.
Not that this book concerns itself overly with the effects of any drug. Rather the world and life are exceedingly strange in themselves. There are scenes which seem almost hallucinatory but they turn out to be rationally perceived scenes of ordinary everyday life, before they are fully comprehended. The New Zealand setting serves the novel well in this, the freakish changes of temperature, a climate prone to extremes, menacingly named plants and bushes and guilt and confusion about the Maori culture hovering at the edge of the characters’ consciousness and conversation. The glaring harsh sunlight makes it necessary for the characters always to protect themselves, with hats, sunglasses, cream, as if a metaphor for their psyches. Too much exposure to truth is disorienting and potentially harmful. All experience moments of longing for the soothing comfort of shade.
The book works hard at conveying the shifting emotions and undercurrents of relationships. In this I don’t think it is entirely successful. It might be that the author is so concerned with getting under each individual’s skin that it is in the moments of personalities coming together that the writing loses some of its dynamic; this facet of the human condition proving too slippery.
There is much that is contentious in the author’s musings and examinations through his characters of aspects of male and female behaviour, motherhood and aggression. This does make the reader stop and consider but it doesn’t interrupt the overall pace and rhythm of the novel. Less controversial is the depiction of need, for addictive substances, comfort, hope. So completely does the writing convince of the characters’ states of mind that the events which provide the focus of the story invade and surprise providing a sudden impact in each case. They consist of two incidents involving clumsy, almost involuntary and in one situation, extremely brutal actions, as if the machinations and furious workings of the mind suddenly short circuit, and are betrayed by the body.
It is an admirable, impressive piece of writing, although not always a pleasant read. Neither the answers sought nor questions posed are easy but it is well worth pursuing to the end. Although much about the subject is familiar this is the work of an original mind.
