Review of The Consequence of Anna by Kate Birkin and Mark Bornz

This lengthy book is set in the 1930s on a cattle station in the shire of Esperance, Australia. Based on facts, it’s a tale of family, obsessive love, and madness. Anna sees things that aren’t there and speaks to her dead mother and sister and people who don’t exist. Her husband, James, is a gifted musician who longs for a music career but is instead tied to Anna’s cattle station. When Anna’s windowed cousin Rose returns to the station after an absence of ten years, she confesses that her greatest desire is to have a baby. Anna conceives an audacious plan to keep her beloved cousin with her forever by persuading her husband to sleep with Rose. Although he is attracted to Rose, James is initially reluctant, but cannot withstand Anna’s will and eventually gives in. Rose becomes pregnant. But when the pair fall in love and Anna learns they have continued to meet in secret, the situation spirals out of control and so does Anna’s schizophrenia.

The characters come to life fully formed on the page. Anna is portrayed as childlike and with a powerful will. Her mental instability is a central theme of the book, and the author deals with it unsparingly and yet with insight and compassion. James’s frustrated desire for a life in music and Rose’s longing for a baby similarly move us to sympathy.

I was struck by an oddity in this book. The narrative goes back and forth between all three, and I couldn’t decide which was the protagonist. Is it possible to have three protagonists? All were dealt with by the author with sympathy. The only antagonist was Anna’s mental issues.

I have two niggles. One is the length of the book. Good value for your money at nearly 600 pages, but it could have been cut to 500 without losing anything of its appeal. The other thing was annoying. It seemed to me the authors must have scoured a thesaurus to find esoteric words to either a) impress the reader with their knowledge of esoteric words b) take the reader out of the story while the reader looked up the meaning of the esoteric words c) the authors don’t know any simpler words to use. I cannot see the reason for it.

Having said all that, I found it to be a brilliant book, beautifully and poignantly written, and of value in helping the modern reader to understand mental disease. I highly recommend it.

*****