Thank you to Tim Burns for his detailed review of The Last Magpie's Song. So glad you enjoyed reading it.
"Rob White’s book is disarming and fascinating yet also disconcerting. I was thrown off balance by the accuracy of his observation and recounting of a young boy’s journey in 1961. We, who grew up then in similar circumstances, will find it hard to judge the story with any distance. Even harder, to divorce the compassionate portrait of our hero Bernard and his young friends with him as a rectitudinous, misanthropic lawyer getting to the end of a less than satisfactory career.
The two parts of this book (actually there’s a third shorter part in 1945) are different in style and tone such that we wonder if there might not be two books; there are indeed two sets of chapters. One can tell the author knows this already and, rejecting polite advice, he has forged on, building the structure with the same part-confident part-irritated style that makes the narration so much fun.
The first section invaded some deep memories watching children both seeking and submitting to their identities. I wanted to shout ‘look behind you’ as their destinies pursued them, hoping they might escape. The writing is (mostly) unobtrusive and deals equally with everyone. It feels like history and not fiction.
A dreadful event ties the first part to the second. This event and its effects embody the book’s search for identity. Images and events navigate us through entwined mysteries. Doves outside young Bernard’s bedroom window ask: ‘ Who are you?’ and then quietly they add: ’It’s Ok…’ Dreams and half memories trickle across the story. ‘The Last Magpie’s Song’ refers to Doug, the poor boy, dreaming of a pre-colonial moment where a man points to a tree branch. This dream is a clue in a man-hunt. As with the opening two words of Hamlet, the author wants to know “Who’s there?”
The sauntering intelligent tone of the second half creates a place for the author’s astringent wit as our man is sick of a lot of stuff yet he keeps diving back into the fray. Bernard is isolated and at a distance from the world, still he wants us to see his side of the story. Pages and passages made me laugh loudly, disturbing others nearby. ‘Come on mate…?’ I thought as the witty self deprecating yet self righteous narrator created a vehicle for a slew of familiar but unexpected sub plots. Drawn into his struggle all of a sudden the plot fills up with faceless enemy bureaucrats , a troubling lass from Human Resources, an ambiguous MP, a wife observing her husband’s dwindling character, Raymond Chandler type encounters with a mysterious woman, attempted murder, spies, pursuit of treasures, judgmental police, the sad house at Shady Grove and a broken family history. Who done it? and Who didn’t? Why this modestly placed book gallops, loose reined, to its finish choc a bloc with page turning treats has to be regarded as a matter for the author.
There is so much more to say about the book’s observations but poignant descriptions of boyhood in 1961 outer suburbia are so close to mine that perception, nostalgia and sadness are easy to tangle. Sometimes the story teller’s values and phrases sound archaic and if ironic, not clear in intention and some arcane references might narrow the audience somewhat. Loath to give anything away, I thought that a Wills Estates and Probate lawyer saying “…I find it uncomfortable mixing with the bereaved” was hilarious. Equally: “I can’t say (XXX) approached our love making with the same gusto she demonstrated pre-Christmas" tells you most of who Bernard is. There is a lot more here and despite rough hewn elements I am immensely grateful for the book, much of which I keep rereading."
- Tim Burns, January 2023