Yes, as the blurb states, Olivia De Zilva’s debut novel is funny, Y2K-reference-packed, and a charming account of being an embarrassed teenager. But it is so much more than that.
De Zilva, an Adelaide-based writer and winner of the AAWP Novella Award (amongst many others in her impressive bio), is so in touch with what it feels like to be a child on the outer that this memoir-meets-fiction work is full of the eerily wise observations we have as young people, even in primary school.
The Olivia in Plastic Budgie has a life which I imagine is almost a mirror image of the author’s, yet maybe the beauty of this book is we don’t really know where fiction starts or ends. Somehow, in 150 pages, you feel like you live her entire life in detail. The family leaps off the page, from the moment her mother gives birth (even though she believes her womb to be cursed) and her father misses the umbilical cord because he has one eye on the television. Throughout, Olivia appears not only as protagonist, but also as a fly on the wall, who is able to analyse her family and society astutely, even in the words of her childhood or teenage self.
Every experience is delivered by this beautifully blended voice, which is childlike, but never simplifies the darkness being faced by Olivia at that moment. This voice is everywhere, from Coles tantrums to sleeping among spirits in Hong Kong.
My highlights were Poh Poh and Gong Gong, Olivia’s grandparents. Through their relationship, De Zilva conveys the push and pull of identity: to be dropped at your Adelaide private school by your Cantonese grandparents and worry about what they will bring to Grandparents’ Day. To make food together, and their obsession with the Western capitalist god that is McDonald’s. There is a lot of joy and sadness to be found in their generational gap.
The end of Plastic Budgie is where De Zilva proves herself as a literary force and pushes the boundaries of fiction and memoir. She bravely puts forward a novel form which explores the good and bad parts within us. This is the kind of voice we need in literature and I urge you to pick it up, for the exploration of cultural identity, for your inner lonely child, and especially for the ABC Kids references.
