Act of Grace, by Anna Krien

Anna Krien is well known to Australian readers for her journalism and non-fiction books, such as Into The Woods and Night Games. Act of Grace is her first work of ficion.

Make no mistake, this is an ambitious work. The multifaceted plot takes in a lot, with locations as diverse as Iraq and Uluru. Krien has a broad cast of characters, from different walks of life, that she finally brings together in Melbourne, on the West Gate bridge, for the final chapter.

The complexities of the plot and its characters are too much to describe in a short review, but here goes. Toohey is a returned soldier from the 2003 Iraq war, clearly suffering post traumatic stress. His character is quite brutal and he's quite harsh on his son, Gerry. In Iraq, Nasim is a gifted pianist. Saddam Hussein takes a shine to her, and then her murderous son, Uday, starts to abuse her, leading her into a life of hell. She manages to seek asylum in Australia, but she keeps some terrible secrets. In Melbourne, Robbie, a young indigenous woman, is going through a personal trauma. Her father has dementia. She also struggles with her identity as an Indigenous woman and seeks to find her place in Australian society.

It takes a good hundred pages for Krien to introduce all her characters, which basically constitute three separate stories, written in three long chapters. From there on in it's a long wait to see all the characters start to intertwine and impact on each others' lives. Even up to the last pages, I couldn't see how it was all going to gel and hold together.

The main problem with Act of Grace, I think, is there's too much sprawl. It seems like Krien set herself an impossible task by bringing so many different characters together in the one story. At best she could have turned this novel into two, one on Indigenous identity, history and place in Australia, and another on Australia's part in the Iraq war. Weaving the two together feels like too much of a stretch.

On the good side, Krien has an action packed writing style that keeps you turning the page. The scenes in Iraq are especially bracing. Kudos, too, for trying to address a lot of important Australian issues. The broad range of realistic characters and punchy dialogue will no doubt appeal to many and make the book a success.

For this reader, though, Act of Grace reads more like three novellas (The returned soldier, Toohey; the Iraqi asylum seeker, Nasim; and the Indigenous Australian, Robbie) trying to merge into one.

(This review was written late 2019)