Ben Hobson

Real Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: For fans of Cormac McCarthy, Phillip Meyer, Fargo, and Justified, a gritty rural noir thriller about family, drugs, and the legacy of violence.

In an isolated town on the coast of southern Australia, Vernon Moore and his wife, Penelope, live in retirement, haunted by an unspeakable act of violence that sent their son, Caleb, to serve time in prison and has driven the couple apart. Ashamed, they refuse to talk about him or visit, but when a close friend warns Vernon that Caleb has been savagely beaten, he has no choice but to act to protect their only child.

The perpetrator of the beating is a local thug from a crime family whose patriarch holds sway over the town, with the police in his pay. Everyone knows they trade in drugs. When Vernon maneuvers to negotiate a deal with the father, he makes a critical error. His mistake unleashes a cycle of violence that escalates to engulf the whole town, taking lives with it, revealing what has been hiding in plain sight in this picturesque rural community and threatening to overtake his son.

Told from shifting perspectives at a sprint, in language that sometimes approaches the simple profundity of parable, this gritty debut was hailed on its Australian publication as “a darkly illuminating thriller that soars across genre constraints . . . [and] engages with pressing contemporary issues while exploring timeless questions. Hobson writes as if his life depends on it” (The Australian).

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The comps in the first line of the description are spot-on. This is a very *Australian* book, though. It could not have happened in the US or Canada in the way it's presented here. For one thing Author Hobson is careful to set his scenes in rural Victoria state, not some generic hot dry small town. The action is intense, and it's really the point of the read.

By which I mean a compliment...the violence in the story isn't pointless, purposeless activity to distract the reader from something...and a knock: The characters are, to be polite, thin. It is a feature of the majority of high-violence stories that the characters are not the most thoroughly fleshed out. I didn't expect them to be. I was, to my surprise, not particularly able to see how I would've known these were retirees, and their son an older man, had I not been explicitly told so once in a while. Many older couples have that kind of relationship that doesn't look very active from the outside. These two, estranged by their shared shame in their son's terrible actions, barely even register as a unitary family. I'm not implying this is unrealistic, only that it makes the course of the story less comprehensible. Penelope in particular comes across as...detached.

This not being what I was reading the book for, I mention it to others who find the absence of a character to root for a deal-breaker. This is a book about a couple living in an Australian coastal town whose lives are upended in a violent, shaking wind; they then go on to ignore their feelings in that very Australian way; then as the violent wind morphs into a whirlwind, they are forced to find a new and better response to their awful, transformed lives.

The mystery is, will they? I won't tell. I will tell you that I left this thriller entertained and glad for its availablilty in the US.… (mais)

As I was reading this novel, I was finishing the autobiography THIS MUCH IS TRUE by Miriam Margolyes in audio form and I was struck by the coincidence of some of the things that she says most powerfully and pointedly, about dehumanisation, the utter and abject cruelty of "Empire" and the way that it empowered, and continues to empower, entrenched racism. Add to that the question from Songlines: the Power and Promise, edited by Margo Neale - "What do you need to know to prosper as a people for 65,000 years?" - and you have a review of THE DEATH OF JOHN LACEY.

Nobody, for a moment, should think that this is not grim, confronting and difficult reading. This is a novel about dehumanisation, dispossession, colonisation and criminal behaviour. In the author's note at the beginning, Hobson says:

"In the writing of this novel I have endeavoured to represent the attitudes of the early colonialists as accurately as possible, including their use of derogatory terminology and the expression of, and belief in, harmful ideas."

He then goes on to acknowledge that these attitudes and beliefs are in no way acceptable by contemporary standards, but they persist, maybe slightly buried by cowardice, due, in no small way, to the myths and lies that have fed the "official" narrative. I'm also acutely aware, as a descendent of a colonising family in the Ballaarat region, that these attitudes and this behaviour is part of my inheritance. Which made reading this novel just that bit more visceral, discomforting and frankly distressing. I'm thankful for writers like Hobson, and the Wadawurrung people who assisted in the writing, who make me confront the past, consider the actions of those that came before, and think long, and very hard, about the need for the truth to be told.

At the heart of this novel is the story of brothers Ernst and Joe Montague - same white father, two different race mothers, both dead when the boys were young. Side by side in everything they do, they were raised with cruelty all around them, and it shows in some of their attitudes and behaviours. John Lacey, on the other hand, is at a completely different level altogether, and the brothers, despite many years of interactions, never settle to him.

Lacey is simply greedy and cruel. He's also power hungry, and a terrible crime gives him the means to establish his own town, which he rules with an iron fist and extreme violence. Contrasted against this maniacal, evil character is the quiet and gentle Gilbert, the new preacher in town, a man who ultimately stands up against Lacey. A newcomer, he has no reason to be beholden to Lacey, and a different supporting platform to those that had survived Lacey's purges. Of considerably more interest to this reader was the platform under Ernst and Joe, whose difficult childhood and outlaw roots built within them their own moral code, a mutually supportive connection, transcending race and difference.

What this novel does particularly well is convey the goldfields as they were. The mud, misery, pain and day to day struggles of life feel very real, as does the initial forays of connection between First Nations people and colonisers. It makes sense that one on one, humanisation was there. Add authority, vested interest and sheer greed, and out rolls the dehumanisation agenda.

Whilst THE DEATH OF JOHN LACEY is violent, unflinching and confronting, it's also extremely worthwhile reading. It is well past time that the white view of colonisation and dispossession was told truthfully, and there are timely lessons to be learnt about the way that "othering" of groups of people is still used to this day.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/death-john-lacey-ben-hobson… (mais)

Snake Island by Ben Hobson was a ripper read in August 2019 and it made it onto my Top 5 Books of 2019 list. I had the pleasure of interviewing the author as well, which you can check out here.

Ben Hobson is back with his new book called The Death of John Lacey which will always be special to me, because guess what? I'm mentioned in the praise section with an excerpt from my Snake Island review! It's so exciting when this happens and I predict I'll never tire of the thrill. What an honour! Now, onto the book.

The Death of John Lacey is set in the Ballarat goldfields of colonial Australia and Hobson cleverly avoids any flack for the inherent racism some of his characters possess. The author is clear at the beginning that his writing is true to the period but understands readers might find the views of his characters abhorrent and unacceptable by our contemporary standards. It's a shame authors need to stipulate that they don't share the views of their characters, but better safe than sorry.

The book is set in 1847, 1853 and 1870 but begins in 1847 with Ernst James Montague and later his brother Joe Montague. These early pages reminded me of the last half of Devotion by Hannah Kent, although on reflection, I guess that shouldn't come as a shock. Both books were written by Australian authors and set in 1800s Australia for a start. Furthermore, the interactions between the new settlers and the indigenous population were interesting, engaging and sensitively handled and the landscape was incredibly evocative in both novels.

I would happily have dwelt here in Ernst's entire life story and I was deeply invested in the life he was living with his father as they tried to eke out a living from the land. Meanwhile, Ernst's mother was bitterly homesick and longed to return to her homeland. Unfortunately things don't go to plan but that's where we leave them.

We're then introduced to the Lacey brothers in 1853, but I couldn't make space for them as I was left wondering what happened to Ernst and Joe. We join them again later, but having been robbed of the aftermath of their earlier circumstances the connection to them as characters was lost.

When we meet him, John Lacey - of the title - is a formidable man on a power trip and not a character the reader is likely to care too much about. John has a brother Gray and while we spend some time in their story, I was indifferent to their plight.

The Death of John Lacey is divided into seven parts, during which time we get a glimpse of the lives of brothers Ernst and Joe Montague, brothers Gray and John Lacey and Father Gilbert Delaney. While Hobson brings all of the plot threads together in the conclusion, I found myself not caring too much about any of the characters; their demise or their salvation. But perhaps that was the point. It was a deplorable time in history and Hobson has given us some pretty heartless characters to despise.

John Lacey isn't an important or compelling character in the novel and his death didn't seem to be the focus of the book. As a result, I found myself puzzling over the title and wondering at its significance other than providing a logical starting and finish point for the overall narrative.

Historical fiction is my favourite genre, although I'll admit reading very few books set in colonial Australia. This is just a personal reading preference and I wouldn't have picked this up if it wasn't for the fact that Hobson absolutely blew me away with Snake Island. The Death of John Lacey is completely different and props to the author for his ability to write two completely different books and deploy a different writing style for each. I know it's a minor point, but I don't enjoy it when authors, editors or publishers decide to do away with punctuation for dialogue, but such is the case here and it definitely diminished my reading pleasure.

Covering themes of race, faith, greed, violence, ambition, law and order and the value of human life, there is much here to get stuck into. The writing is distinctly Australian, the landscape evocative and there were some great character insights, like this one from Father Gilbert:

"Gilbert understood that all death was like this, having presided over so many. There was always great wailing and sorrow, but in the end, after the dying had been done, there was pragmatism, and great relief in the work it required. Even so, he could not help but picture Joe's face as each nail was struck and the thought of Christ crucified on the cross and how those nails might sink into flesh." Page 242

The Death of John Lacey by Ben Hobson is recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction set in the goldfields of Australia, fans of Ned Kelly or bushranger fiction and readers who love a good western but won't get snooty when there is no dialogue punctuation.

Ben Hobson is clearly an Aussie talent to watch and I can't wait to see what he turns his pen to next. Guaranteed I'll be there to be an early reader.

* Copy courtesy of Allen & Unwin *… (mais)