Ash Mountain by Helen Fitzgerald

Helen Fitzgerald’s third novel, ‘Ash Mountain’, blends powerful action with deep and painful emotion. The book tracks the poisonous effects of hidden corruption, invisible but deadly, over thirty years. To tell Fran’s story, Fitzgerald expertly juggles three time periods; the day of a cataclysmic natural disaster, the days leading up to it and Fran’s fifteenth year. Throughout, descriptions of the day-to-day routines of people’s lives are interspersed with warning signs of the horror that is about to overwhelm them. Meanwhile, Fran uncovers a secret that forces her to re-evaluate everything she knows about her teenage self.

Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she’d escaped. But her father is ill, and needs care. Her relationship is over, and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway. She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends.

Fran’s relationship with Vincent, the father of her daughter, was never passionate and has long since settled into affectionate boredom. They agree to separate, to develop more stimulating lives. For Vincent, this means staying in the city and beginning a new relationship, whilst parenting fifteen-year-old Vonny part-time. In contrast, forty-something Fran must care for an ailing parent while raising a truculent child. With Vonny, who is going through a stage of hating her Mum, she returns to Ash Mountain, the small Australian town where she grew up, to give her father end-of-life care.

Fran’s Dad, a retired pharmacist, is loving but stubborn. She has to learn to live with his custom of greeting acquaintances with a cheery ‘How’s that itchy rash?’ Fran also finds it hard to accept her father’s unquestioning devotion to the Catholic church. Although she feels affection for an elderly nun who taught her, she dislikes the manipulative behaviour of the priest, an old family friend.

There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time, and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer.

Memories and secrets permeate Fran’s new life, like the stench of a blocked drain on a hot day. Having lost her glamorous mother at a young age, she lacked guidance during her teenage years, and gave birth to Dante at fifteen. Her son chose to remain with his grandfather when Fran moved to the city, and at twenty-nine is happy with his self-sufficient life. The following extract is an example of the author’s lively dialogue and also illustrates how attitudes to Ash Mountain vary.

‘I like this dump,’ said Dante.

Fran spat out toothpaste, rinsed her mouth and kissed her son’s forehead.

‘Yeah, but you’re a dickhead!’

However, Fran’s future begins to look brighter when, at the steaming heart of a sweltering summer, an old friend presents himself as a possible new lover. This promises to be Fran’s first real love affair, but as ever, its path does not run smooth. The younger generation is also on the hunt for love, and their sexual energy affects the life choices of their elders, in surprising and complex ways.

As past friendships and rivalries are renewed, and new ones forged, Fran’s tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants.

Last year, powerful images of Australian homesteads, consumed and destroyed by fire, touched all our hearts. In ‘Ash Mountain’, Helen Fitzgerald leads us deep into the reality of these events, by creating delightful characters and involving us in their lives, before forcing the reader to follow them to their doom. This is a harrowing, and at times almost unbearable, experience, but in order to prevent tragedies like those that affected Fran happening again, it is necessary. We must never forget those who died in such heartbreaking circumstances.

What did I like about this book?

I admired its honesty, realism and attention to detail, and I loved the descriptions of the Australian landscape.

What would I change?

At times, I found the sequence of events difficult to follow, but the pace and drama made up for it.

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