Resistance (Jacinta Halloran, Text)

Resistance is the fourth novel by the award-winning author of Dissection and Pilgrimage, Jacinta Halloran. Narrated by family therapist Nina, it follows the Agostino family, mandated to see Nina after stealing a car and disappearing into the outback with their two children. The unravelling of the Agostino story is set alongside intense vignettes of patients, colleagues and Nina’s own therapist, who each share their deepest insecurities with her. Nina’s tone is clinical, remote and sad. Spending her working days ‘prising open the lid on the sadness of the living’, it’s no surprise that Nina is ‘sad at heart’. Through her sessions with supervising therapist Erin, we discover the deeper layers of Nina’s melancholy: the intergenerational pain, secrets and suffering that haunt both her professional and private life. (Some of the strongest scenes involve Erin’s persistent encouraging of Nina to respond as a person and not as a therapist to emotional content.) Stories within stories, the vignettes in Resistance (deployed as long character monologues, not unlike those in Rachel Cusk’s ‘Outline’ series) provide meditative insight into the machinations of family therapy and the nuances of interpersonal relationships. However, while the characters are well drawn, their monologues can at times feel contrived and academic. Nonetheless, Resistance is thought-provoking on some big issues—mental health care, parenting, motherhood, aging, gender equality and First Nations history—and will appeal to anyone interested in the human condition with all its fascinating foibles.

Michelle Atkins is  a communications professional and published educational author. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Reviews