Justine, sweet-natured, yearning to be loved, is unaware that she is stunning. Her father’s sister has escaped the family and, over several years, Justine puts all her fantastical hope of rescue in her aunt. And, just as Jimmy found solace in the warmth of a dog, Justine loves the pretty chooks, the Isa Browns that lay all year round and are kept well guarded by a fierce rooster. The future for nine-year-old Justine looks as brutish as her present.Īt school she is considered dumb and smelly, although she manages to make a close friend of a clever boy with cerebral palsy. On one of these visits he teaches his daughter to shoot. Justine’s mother cleared out long ago, and her lady-killer father drops by only when he wants refuge from his wide-ranging criminal activities. Pop, a veteran of the Burma Railway, considers the nearest town to be behind enemy lines and converses with his long-dead wife. Justine lives with her two horrible half-brothers under the protection of her grandfather. She understands that the water passes through The Choke and flows on and out to the sea. This menacing part of the river is called The Choke and Justine has dreams about it. It’s the 1970s and Justine lives in a clapped-out house by the Murray River where the banks swerve together and the water sometimes rushes wildly. The Choke features a young narrator called Justine finding her way past an inheritance of brutality and loss. The Eye of the Sheep, winner of the 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award, was narrated by an unusual little boy called Jimmy finding his way through a precarious life. Sofie Laguna is something of a specialist in this area. Unless you’re Henry James you need a particular confidence to create an adult work with a child narrator.
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