Darkness Runs Deep (Claire McNeel, Macmillan)

Gerandaroo, 1993: population 723, winner of 24 football premierships since 1899. A place where AFL is a non-negotiable part of life and where everyone is a friend—until an act of violence so shocking the town is never again the same. Months later, teacher Bess O’Neill returns from the city—pulled back to her hometown by an absence she can’t explain—to a house silent with loss and a community drifting apart. When she accepts a drunken dare from an old friend to start a women’s AFL team, Gerandaroo comes to life with enthusiasm from women long excluded from the sport they love—and resentment from those who think women should stay on the sidelines. As the first game looms, there is a painful revelation about why the men’s teams were banned from playing. Now, the horrors of the past may finally be reckoned with. Bess—still unable to talk about what happened the year before and struggling to know her place in the world—is the core of Darkness Runs Deep, but Gerandaroo has other strong voices vying to be heard. There are a lot of characters to follow, but the team’s growing passion for the game fills the reader with genuine nerves and fragile hope. McNeel’s debut probes more into the aftermath of crime than the act itself, and is for fans of stories with simmering outback secrets, such as Maryrose Cuskelly’s Cane, or the footy-based town tensions of Sarah Thornton’s Lapse.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Fiona Hardy is the author of the How To series of middle fiction books, and a bookseller at Readings. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Reviews