A New Name for the Colour Blue - Book Review

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This story centers on the disappearance of a young indigenous girl and its long aftermath. Mystery surrounds the childhood of Cassie Noble after her best friend goes missing; these events overshadow her adult life choices. Until the past and present meet and merge to find a hard-fought resolution. Annette Marner has crafted stories within stories with many diverging themes. We begin in metropolitan Adelaide with many familiar sights and scenes to this reader. It is so refreshing to find a book that has a rich sense of place.



The reader is then taken North to the Flinders Ranges, a place of ancient mountain ranges and a forlorn sense of isolation. As the story of Cassie's journey to healing, love, and reconciliation comes to fruition, the reader is captivated by family grudges, nostalgia, and cruelty told in the most lyrical prose. This book has had a long gestation and it is clear that every sentence has been carefully placed. If anything, there are too many threads here. We read of indigenous rights, misogyny, racism, migration, cultural cringe, domestic violence, grief, animal suffering and cruelty, palliative care and same sex relationships, all these themes are threaded together as a gripping narrative.



The creative need to express oneself is what lies beneath the traumatic events playing out here. An artist free to soar needs to be at home in themselves. The lead character, Cassie, finds many ways to escape her past, but finding true meaning and a sense of healing is a journey well worth taking. The title is as intriguing as the entire narrative and well worth investigating. One can only hope that this author continues to create more finely crafted stories like this in the future.

Published February 1st 2020 by Wakefield Press .

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