Eden

I’m fortunate to live near the Melbourne General Cemetery and my dog and I often walk through it on our way to Princes Park; I try to read the oldest headstones, particularly those that sit in a little meadow under a grove of peppercorn trees. It’s peaceful there and provides me time for reflection. Often, I pass the memorial for two dear friends, sisters Mietta and Trish O’Donnell, designed by architects Six Degrees; it’s a strikingly beautiful, simple, modernist structure sitting amongst the ornate marble memorials favoured by more traditional families. There are small rotundas dotted throughout the cemetery that have been useful when an occasional downpour hits. The late Boyd Oxlade set part of his darkly comic novel Death in Brunswick in the cemetery. On a number of occasions, I’ve run into writer Mark Brandi and his dog, either in the cemetery or in Macpherson Street, which runs along its northern boundary. I like Mark a lot; he’s a charming, compassionate and intelligent man. He’s also a writer whose books I’ve enjoyed and admired. Mark’s work demonstrates an empathy for the marginalised in our society. His books are often classified as literary crime, and in some sense they are; they race along with unexpected twists and turns, but they also explore experiences and emotions on more profound levels.

In his latest novel, Eden, Tom Blackburn is released from prison after serving nine years of a sentence for accessory to murder. We don’t discover until later how he came to be in this situation, but he’s determined to put that behind him and to try to rebuild his life and rekindle the relationship that ended when he was sent to prison. As an ex-prisoner, his options are limited and they become even more limited when he loses his meagre savings from his prison work. We feel for him, for his lack of agency as he’s exploited and manipulated. Sleeping rough seems to be his only option, but that brings with it challenges of violence and police harassment. A chance comment that the cemetery is a safe place to sleep when the gates are locked at night leads him there and then by further chance to a job in the cemetery. Cyril, the overseer, offers him a lifeline; without asking questions, he seems to understand and have sympathy for Tom’s predicament. The work is strange but honest and gives Tom a place to stay – in the maintenance shed at the Macpherson Street gate. He tentatively reaches out to his old girlfriend; she’s in a relationship but Tom can sense that there’s still a chance for him – she doesn’t reject him outright. Maybe things are going to turn out okay.

But then Tom’s peace is interrupted by a journalist wanting to uncover why he did what he did, dragging the trauma of his crime back into the open. Tom’s equilibrium is also challenged when Cyril offers him a deal, one in which there can only be one winner – and it’s not Tom. Confronted by a moral choice and pressures from all sides, Tom struggles with what to do. In the cemetery, he thought he’d found his Eden, and now it looks like Hell.

I think this is Brandi’s best work since his award-winning debut, Wimmera; it’s an enthralling story with wonderful characters, mystery, moral dilemmas and, at its centre, the brooding hulk of the Melbourne General Cemetery. You won’t look at a grave the same way again.