The Spill
Winner of the Penguin Literary Prize
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4.2 • 13 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In 1982, a car overturns on a remote West Australian road. Nobody is hurt, but the impact is felt for decades.
Nicole and Samantha Cooper both remember the summer day when their mother, Tina, lost control of their car – but not in quite the same way. It is only after Tina’s death, almost four decades later, that the sisters are forced to reckon with the repercussions of the crash. Nicole, after years of aimless drifting, has finally found love, and yet can’t quite commit. And Samantha is hiding something that might just tear apart the life she’s worked so hard to build for herself.
The Spill explores the cycles of love, loss and regret that can follow a family through the years – moments of joy, things left unsaid, and things misremembered. Above all, it is a deeply moving portrait of two sisters falling apart and finding a way to fit back together.
Customer Reviews
Spilllover
Author
Australian. Describes herself as a recovering blogger, impending novelist and compulsive short story writer. She blogged for some years at Not Drowning, Mothering, which won the 2010 Bloggies award for best Australian/New Zealand Weblog. Her short fiction has won a slew of awards. The manuscript for this, her first published novel, was awarded the 2019 Penguin Literary Prize.
Plot
Nicole and Samantha Cooper are primary school age when their Mum Tina, who is partial to a drinkie-winkie, rolls the car in the WA outback in 1982. Their Dad Craig comes to collect them. Tina and Craig divorce soon after. Craig remarries. He and new wifey Donna Louise take Samantha in. Nicole, who is a few years older, stays with Mum. Fats forwards 20 years. Craig and Donna Louise divorce and he takes on a much younger wifey. (Some men are suckers for punishment). Staunchly tee-total Samantha is married to Trent and has a daughter with whom she fights all the time. Nicole sews mucho wild oats before settling down in her late thirties with Jethro. He's extremely wealthy, which goes some way to compensating for his daggy name. Meanwhile, Tina is drinking herself into an early grave, and eventually succeeds. Family dynamics are rarely as straightforward as they seem, which definitely applies here.
Narrative
Third person from the POV of Nicole and Sam mainly. Essentially linear narrative but a looping style where new chapters fill in back story from previous chapter before proceeding. It works.
Characters
The main protagonists are well drawn, sympathetic when required, and believable.
Prose
Crisp, clean, no nonsense. What's not to like?
Bottom line
Doesn't try to break any new ground theme-wise (thank the Lord), but well executed technically. An impressive debut.
The Spill
Apart from the accident.. Nicole’s story mirrored my life, even down to the Dog swamp video library. I relived and loved every page.