Nature’s Fool (Timothy Doyle, Melbourne Books)
Challenging traditional conceptions of early Australian settler history, Nature’s Fool examines the intricate relations between the Kaurna peoples and early Irish settlers. A longtime academic and conservationist, Timothy Doyle (Dyandi) expertly blends historical fact with fiction, drawing on his deep knowledge of both cultures collated over a lifetime of experience, interaction and dedicated research. The novel is set in the late 1800s and follows Seamus, an outcast forced from his Irish settlement, Gweedore, whose immense physical strength, shape-shifting abilities and second sight make him both powerful and alienated. Having no option but to take a treacherous sea journey to escape the misplaced anger of his community, he arrives in Kaurna Country, South Australia, where he encounters the warmth of kinship after a lifetime of being the black sheep. However, when colonisers breach their community, Seamus is again cast as an outsider, leading him on a restless search for home. Despite the novel’s relatively short length, it ambitiously takes on multiple themes: Indigenous–Irish relations, detailed insights into Indigenous cultures, colonisation, magical realism and alternating points of view. While the use of interludes written by Seamus’s son Tomas provides welcome pauses in the narrative, the book ultimately feels too condensed for the scope of its ideas. A longer format might have allowed these concepts to be explored more deeply. Despite this, Nature’s Fool is a bold and distinctive approach to historical fiction, blending the mystical with the real in a way that will appeal to fans of A.K. Blakemore and Ursula Le Guin.
Please note: This book uses the term Indigenous and therefore this term appears in this review.
Books+Publishing reviewer: Nilab Siddiqi is a bookseller and publishing student based in Sydney set on diversifying the Australian industry. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.
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Category: Friday Unlocked reviews Reviews
