Nest in Aussie Readers

Jul 24, 2014 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arc, aussie-authors, net-galley, 2014-release, read-on-kindle, contemporary-fiction, own-read

Jen had felt the artist within her for her whole life – nature and the wild spoke to her in a way no human being ever had. After spending four years at art school she moved on to teaching. But now she had returned to her roots, to the area in Queensland where she was a child. She had bought an old home, rundown and ramshackle, but somehow hers. The bush, the beautiful birds, the other creatures on her semi tropical property – all calmed her, soothed her. The little room she called her studio was Jen had felt the artist within her for her whole life – nature and the wild spoke to her in a way no human being ever had. After spending four years at art school she moved on to teaching. But now she had returned to her roots, to the area in Queensland where she was a child. She had bought an old home, rundown and ramshackle, but somehow hers. The bush, the beautiful birds, the other creatures on her semi tropical property – all calmed her, soothed her. The little room she called her studio was filled with work both past and current that she was working on, trying to find that unique touch to bring the pages to life.

Her Aunt Sophie lived a few hours away, but the person she saw the most was Henry, a primary school student who came once a week for drawing lessons. She would bake for Henry each week; scones, cake, cupcakes – they would drink sweet milky tea with her latest offering before starting work. But one day Henry told of a school friend, Caitlin, who had gone missing. She had vanished after school the day before – the horror for Jen was that her best friend Michael had vanished in similar circumstances when she had been twelve; he had never been found. That same week Jen’s father had walked out on her and her mother as well…

With Queensland’s summer heat at its highest, Jen and the community were waiting for the wet season to begin. It was late this year – she was running low on water, her garden, her herbs and vegetables were wilting. The creek was just a trickle, the birds sat with their beaks open, gasping, with their wings spread to hopefully pick up a lingering breeze; everything was suffering in the long dry season. How much longer would they all have to wait for the wet season to arrive?

I am totally blown away by Aussie author Inga Simpson’s way with words! I chose a couple of sections to demonstrate:

The leaves were still bright green, its heart still sap-filled and rebellious, as if it did not yet know it was dead. (55%)

The trees were lathering themselves, soapy suds running down their trunks and foaming at the base. Their tannins doubled as a washing agent; the trees were taking the opportunity to bathe. (83%)

I found this book completely divine. The writing, the descriptions, the whole book resonated with me immensely. I have no hesitation in recommending Nest highly to everyone. It is a must read!

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.
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May 13, 2014 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it liked it

Shelves: netgalley-reviews, aussie-author

After a relationship breakdown and the death of her mother, artist Jen Vogel has taken refuge in her childhood hometown. Here she is content to sketch and paint the birds that visit her garden, care for the land that embraces her property and tutor a talented local teen to supplement her income, but unpleasant memories are revived when a young girl goes missing on her way home from school. Nearly four decades earlier, Jen's best friend Michael, and then her father, disappeared without a trace wi ...more

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Jul 13, 2014 Lauredhel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: australian-women-writers-challenge, australian, aww2014

Jen has returned to her childhood town in the subtropics of Eastern Australia. She teaches art and watched the birds and wildlife in her jungle home. As a child from the town goes missing, Jen is reminded of the loss of her father and her best friend when she was a child. Jen’s return to her nest reconnects her to this mystery of the past, and to meaning. Her relationship with her student, Henry, is both a friendship and a mentorship.

The languid pace of this book luxuriates in gorgeous descript Jen has returned to her childhood town in the subtropics of Eastern Australia. She teaches art and watched the birds and wildlife in her jungle home. As a child from the town goes missing, Jen is reminded of the loss of her father and her best friend when she was a child. Jen’s return to her nest reconnects her to this mystery of the past, and to meaning. Her relationship with her student, Henry, is both a friendship and a mentorship.

The languid pace of this book luxuriates in gorgeous description of the birds, the forest, the community, and art. Despite a pair of missing-child mysteries being central (ish), the feeling of Nest is quiet, contemplative, and engrossing: as connects with place, with land, and with life - through her art.

"Jen put a hand on the log on which she leaned. She was a timber child, grown from fallen trees and sawdust. Standing on stumps before she knew them for carcasses and gravestones. […] In Jen’s forest, only two original trees survived, bloodwoods metres thick, and towering above the other trees. Their timber wasn’t any good for building, riddled with veins of blood-like resin that oozed out when their trunks or limbs were cut or damaged. It was a shame all trees didn’t bleed: there might be a few more left standing."

Jen’s close, attentive observation of nature and the everyday is intricate, but in a good way, like meandering through a Mandelbrot set.

“Not for the first time, she wondered if it wasn’t a mistake to try to pin the bird to the page, to confine it to paper with her meagre scratches and marks. The pleasure of living among them should be enough.
As if to emphasise the point, the family of fairy-wrens flitted and flirted their long tails at the baths, the cobalt blue and russet of the males no less astounding for the frequency with which she saw it. It made them vain, though. She preferred the plainer females with their red eye masks and more subtle touches of blue in their tail feathers. Their cheerful chatter lacked the self-consciousness of the males, the need to perform. And she knew all too well what it was to be the plainer of a pair.”

Jen also confronts her own ageing, sharing with us descriptions of her bodily experience of perimenopause.

"Her skin was dry and itchy, wanting to flake off like the bark of the spotted gums outside. Not that she was lucky enough to have a smooth new version of herself waiting underneath; she was stuck with the skin she had, stretching and wrinkling with each passing year."

As Nest progresses, a series of ultimately minor but potentially serious incidents gives us a sense of ever-present mortality, of life on the edge. We are left contemplating the horror of child murder, and this is contextualised with the way killings are utterly ordinary amongst the birds and other animals that Jen watches - humans as another form of wildlife, perhaps, facing the same menaces.

"She had given the robins a false sense of security, thinking that they were safe in this clearing. But with the trees dropping leaves and branches flat out to survive the dry spell, the cover had thinned and butcherbirds snuck in to spy little birds from the high branches, swooping to strike."

The pacing of the book is like a slow heartbeat, as it moves through weed-fighting, sketching, teaching, bird-watching, flood, regeneration work, family secrets, swimming… This is a beautifully-crafted book teeming with life, death, and the ephemerality and beauty of existence and peril. ...more

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Dec 05, 2014 Michael Livingston rated it really liked it

A really beautiful book about birds, nature, art, family and how to make a life. As a bird-nerd who grew up around the areas that this is set I might be particularly biased to love it, but it's bound to appeal to anyone with a passing interest in nature writing and literary fiction. ...more

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Oct 17, 2016 Kate Forsyth rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary, australian, aww16

Nest – Inga Simpson

Inga Simpson is an Australian writer and Nest is a rhapsody about the importance of being at one with the natural world. The protagonist Jen is a middle-aged artist who has retreated from the world after a bitter break-up. She lives on the edge of a sub-tropical rainforest, which she has turned into a paradise for native birds and animals. Hers is a quiet life; she watches the birds, teaches a local boy to draw and paint, and practises her own art when she can. One day a local ...more

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Jul 15, 2022 Kim rated it really liked it

Shelves: cultural-australia, australian-author, australian-fiction, contemporary-fiction, australian-women-writers, bookfair200207, own, a-book-for-every-year-of-my-life

Another wonderful book in Inga Simpson's backlist. Quite a different story to the other two of her's I've read, but have her trademark sense of place and an interesting female lead character imbued with a creative talent.
Living on her own in a tropical Qld hinterland, Jen, with an artistic talent for capturing birds on the canvas, tries to make sense of her life, her lost father, a lost childhood friend and a lost local child, a friend of her young art student's.
Her home, the section of tropic ...more

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