Darkness on the Edge of Town in Aussie Readers

Jul 23, 2012 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aussie-author

Darkness on the Edge of Town is a haunting tale of loss, tenderness and violence set in an isolated Australian valley. On the road outside the hilltop home Vincent shares with his teenage daughter Gemma, he finds an upturned car and a young woman cradling the lifeless body of her baby son. A collector of broken things and broken people, when the woman reappears just days later, barefoot, bruised and distraught, Vincent takes her into his home, and his heart.

Despite the differences in age and gen ...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Brenda rated it really liked it

Shelves: borrowed-from-library, 2012-release

When thirty nine year old Vincent rounded the corner near his bush home, and came across a car, upside down and steaming, he was stunned. Hitting the brakes, he hurried from his truck, but couldn’t see anyone, until he heard moaning coming from the nearby trees. What he saw shocked him to the core! A young woman, not much more than a girl actually, with blood running down the side of her face, and cradling what appeared to him to be a baby. But the baby was too still, too cold…

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Sep 20, 2012 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, australian, contemporary, literary, aww2012

Vincent collects broken things. Living up on a remote hill with his teenage stepdaughter Gemma, he trawls tips for furniture and appliances for his house, collecting far more than he could ever need, cluttering up the small house. They don’t have much, but together they get by.

Vince doesn’t just collect broken things, he seems drawn to broken people as well. Wherever he goes, drama tends to follow and he doesn’t know quite how he ended up in these situations. He married Gemma’s mother when she w Vincent collects broken things. Living up on a remote hill with his teenage stepdaughter Gemma, he trawls tips for furniture and appliances for his house, collecting far more than he could ever need, cluttering up the small house. They don’t have much, but together they get by.

Vince doesn’t just collect broken things, he seems drawn to broken people as well. Wherever he goes, drama tends to follow and he doesn’t know quite how he ended up in these situations. He married Gemma’s mother when she was just 2 and when she took off years later, Gemma stayed with Vince. Since then Vince has drifted in and out of relationships with broken women.

He arrives home one night and finds Rachel on his property, distressed and cradling a baby. She has crashed her car on a dangerous bend in the road just near his house and she’s in a state. He looks after her, patching her up best he can, calling the ambulance for the baby. When they arrive and take them both away, Vince thinks that’s probably the last of it. He’s done his good deed.

But then Rachel turns up at his house, having escaped from the hospital and walked all the way out there. She’s brittle and grieving and for some reason she seems to have chosen Vince as a shelter, a place where she feels safe. Gently, Vince is able to tease Rachel’s story out in small increments, a tragic tale that stirs within him a protectiveness. Despite his best efforts of getting Rachel the treatment she needs for her injuries, getting her the help she needs for her situation, Rachel always seems to find her way back to Vince.

Darkness On The Edge Of Town starts with a bang, Vincent, an almost-40 country sort of bloke arriving home and finding a car has gone off the road and crashed near his isolated property. He finds Rachel, cradling her 9wk old baby and it’s clear to Vincent from first glance that things aren’t at all okay with the baby. Rachel is in a state of shock but it isn’t until later that it becomes apparent that Rachel is in shock from much more than just her accident and subsequent loss.

I was hooked on this story from the first few words – the narrative is split between Vince and his young stepdaughter (who is really more than that), a 16yo girl wise and mature beyond her years. Vince is the only father she has ever known and she chose to stay with him when he and her mother split up and the two of them have a close and somewhat unusual relationship. Gemma accepts her father’s ways of finding and trying to fix broken things, perhaps she even shares it. But she knows that Rachel, when she reappears in their lives, is going to change things. You can see her apprehension, her hesitance. She’s torn between feeling sorry for Rachel, wanting to help her, wanting to help fix her as well, and perhaps trying to protect herself and her father from what Rachel will bring into their lives, a type of chaos from which there will be consequences.

This is a book strongly driven by character and relationships. Vince is rough around the edges but also gentle. I couldn’t help but sympathise with him because he had such good intentions but he was really quite ill equipped emotionally to care for Rachel after what she had been through. That’s no slight on Vince – as Rachel’s tragic story unfolds, it’s clear that she’s quite scarred and damaged by where her life has led her and Vince’s best attempts are not going to be enough to help her. As a mother I also felt deeply for Rachel, the way in which she had this child did not change the depth of her grief for him when he was then lost to her and some of the scenes where Rachel finally has to accept that little Frankie is gone are utterly heartbreaking in their honest simplicity.

The character of Gemma is so beautifully written – a 16yo girl living only with her father. Her mother has very little to do with her now and you can tell from her brief appearance in this book that even though Gemma has come to realise exactly what her mother is, her visits cause her pain because they force her to re-confront this every single time. She’s at a stage where she probably desperately needs a mother to talk to about the things she’s going with at school, with boys, but all she has is Vince and although the two of them do have a lovely bond, it’s not the same. I felt for Gemma so much, she seemed very lost at times in this novel and at others she was such an amazing tower of strength.

Darkness On The Edge Of Town is a very promising debut from a truly talented young Australian woman writer and I very much look forward to what Jessie Cole has in store for readers.

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Jul 05, 2012 Jenny rated it liked it

Shelves: 2012

In many respects this story of what happens when a man takes a car crash victim under his wing deserves more than 3 stars - the characterization is excellent for one - but I was so disappointed with the ending I can't be more generous. About halfway through the book I pondered on possible meanings of the title and had an ah-ha moment where I thought I could see where the author was going. If she pulled it off I planned to shout her name from the rooftops. Alas she wasn't planning anything clev ...more

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Dec 28, 2013 Michael Livingston rated it liked it

A solid Australian novel about the appearance of a young woman in a small town and the subtle (and not so subtle) shockwaves that reverberate through the town. Nicely written and tightly plotted, but not hugely surprising.

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