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The Last Time We Spoke por Fiona Sussman
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The Last Time We Spoke (edição 2016)

por Fiona Sussman (Autor)

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275858,287 (4.14)4
On the night that Carla Reid plans on celebrating her wedding anniversary with her husband Kevin and their grown son Jack, their New Zealand farmstead has never felt more like home. But when Ben Toroa and another aspiring gang member brutally force their way into the house with robbery and more on their minds, the night and the rest of both their lives take a radically different direction. As Carla struggles to come to terms with the aftermath and bereavement of different kinds and Ben faces the consequences in prison, their stories will be forever entwined.… (mais)
Membro:ltfl_nelson
Título:The Last Time We Spoke
Autores:Fiona Sussman (Autor)
Informação:Allison & Busby (2016), 320 pages
Coleções:Stoke BookChat October 2012 On, A sua biblioteca
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The Last Time We Spoke por Fiona Sussman

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The title of Fiona Sussman's second novel haunts the narrative: The Last Time We Spoke refers to the endless regret when hasty words turn out to be the last words ever spoken to someone you love. But, in a different context in the novel, it also refers to a kind of benediction that provides a way forward when it seems there is no way to go on.

Winner of the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best Crime Novel, and a nominee for the 2016 New Zealand Heritage Book Awards, The Last Time We Spoke isn't a crime novel in the genre sense of the label. It explores the aftermath of a violent home invasion, the theme apparently triggered by a spate of violent youth crime in New Zealand.

A 2015 New Zealand Social Development report makes findings that have parallels in Australia. While it notes falling rates of youth crime due to the implementation of various reforms, its key finding is that:
An estimated one in twenty New Zealand children are known to Police for offending before reaching 14 years of age. Boys are twice as likely as girls to offend as children. Māori children are approximately three times more likely than non-Māori children to become known to Police as an offender by age 14.

The reasons, as we all know, are complex, but the report's findings also include recommendations about prevention, i.e. preventing young people from offending and entering the justice system, and if that fails, there needs to be effective intervention to increase the likelihood that they do not reoffend.

Sussman's novel explores just how hard that can be for the individuals involved. It begins with an ordinary family living an ordinary life on a New Zealand farm. Just two adults, and a much-loved adult son, on the verge of independence. And on an ordinary night these lives are shattered by the arrival of two young thugs who take from Carla, everything she has. They break into the house, and smash it up in the quest for money and drugs. They assault Carla's husband Kevin, they rape Carla, and they kill her only child, Jack. Kevin can't even attend Jack's funeral: he never recovers from the assault and has to go into institutional care. Carla can't manage the farm alone and has to sell it and move into a mean little apartment in town. And for her, the road to recovery is beset by intrusive journalists, unhelpful family, profound loneliness and mental health problems that resist counselling and medication.

Any one of us would wonder how to go on, in a situation like that.

The narrative however, interleaves Carla's situation with that of Ben, the younger of the thugs, aged only 16. He has grown up in a home where a succession of violent men have bashed his mother into compliance, and where he and his five younger siblings have lived in fear, neglect and abuse. For him, joining one of the rival gangs is inevitable: it's where he feels some sense of belonging and it's the only place in his world for him to gain any kind of status. The courts took this into account when he was given a lesser sentence than the older boy, but if Ben serves his full sentence, he will be almost thirty when he gets out.

Carla crosses paths with Ben again when she very reluctantly agrees to take part in a restorative justice program. It's quite clear to her that this arrogant, disrespectful boy is only parroting his apology in a naïve attempt to improve his chances of parole, chances which are non-existent because of his violent, uncooperative behaviour in prison. The meeting is a failure.

But from this disastrous meeting, Ben realises that he needs to be better at faking sincere remorse. And that begins a long journey which leads to a kind of redemption that brings Carla some kind of reason to live.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/04/25/the-last-time-we-spoke-2016-by-fiona-sussman... ( )
  anzlitlovers | Apr 24, 2023 |
Jack Reid has returned home to celebrate his parents wedding anniversary with them on their rural property.
Their evening and lives are shattered by the horrific events which unfold.
Through the use of changing narrative voices and an omniscient spirit voice, the author looks at the traumatic effect of the brutal home invasion, not only on the Reid family but the perpetrators of the crime.
I found this compulsive reading and thought she managed to restore an environment of hope and redemption. ( )
  HelenBaker | Jun 12, 2020 |
This is a compassionate look at the aftermath of a violent crime - compassionate to both the perpetrators and victims of the crime. Although written by a South African import to New Zealand, it has a Maori perspective on healing the hurt of violence and disconnection. ( )
  SarahStenhouse | Dec 10, 2017 |
New Zealand author Fiona Sussman has created something absolutely remarkable in her blended crime and contemporary fiction novel THE LAST TIME WE SPOKE. Winner of the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel this is a novel that contrasts the brutality and thoughtlessness of a crime, against the heartbreaking loss resulting, and the way that a woman recovers, and rebuilds her life in the aftermath.

It's a story that's all too familiar. An illiterate disadvantaged young boy, caught up in gang life, gets involved in a brutal, vicious home invasion that leaves one person dead, another seriously injured never to recover, and a woman struggling with that reality, to say nothing of what they did to her on the night. That woman, a farmer's wife had led a normal life involving family and the farm, nothing in her past could possibly have prepared her for the way that one violent act would tear her world apart. And then there is the problem of how she moves on. This woman loses everything that is near and dear to her on that night, and when the media attention has faded, when the perpetrators are identified and jailed, there's still the problem of why and what does she do with a life that's ripped to shreds.

Sussman has created an astounding exploration of consequences in THE LAST TIME WE SPOKE. What Carla Reid does with the pieces of her life is confronting, distressing in places, hopeful and profoundly uplifting in others. What causes a young offender like Ben Toroa to do what he did is considered, carefully and respectfully developed. There's no sense here that Sussman is excusing offenders, rather, she explores, as with the consequences of crime, the consequences of disadvantage, peer pressure and lack of hope. There are aspects of this novel that are a physical, not just a mental experience, searingly uncomfortable and yet, moving and affecting.

In the end it does all come down to hope - you hope that Carla Reid will continue to move on. You hope that Ben Toroa will continue to understand his choices haven't been wise or necessary. Ultimately, THE LAST TIME WE SPOKE will leave readers thinking about consequences long after the novel has come to an end.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-last-time-we-spoke-fiona-sussman ( )
  austcrimefiction | Oct 30, 2017 |
I appreciated the lack of graphic detail surrounding some disturbing content, particularly the home invasion. It did not diminish the horrible reality of what the family had endured and the long, painful struggle to heal. The story follows the aftermath of the victims and the perpetrator. Carla's son is murdered and her husband is brutally beaten. Two young Maori teens high on drugs change the course of Carla's life, killing her only child and causing brain damage to her husband. Ben is eventually caught and sent to prison. He is the product of his environment, living in fear of a violent stepfather and witness to his mother's beatings, has a limited education and low socio-economic status.
I liked the succinct writing. It gave the story impact. Research has gone into this story but I still had some reservation about a white South African woman writing it about something so intimately NZ.
The author has a wonderful way with words, and I enjoyed the way she created imagery and world building. The ending offers hope and new beginnings, it is what we would want for Carla and Ben. ( )
  SueS7 | Jul 14, 2016 |
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On the night that Carla Reid plans on celebrating her wedding anniversary with her husband Kevin and their grown son Jack, their New Zealand farmstead has never felt more like home. But when Ben Toroa and another aspiring gang member brutally force their way into the house with robbery and more on their minds, the night and the rest of both their lives take a radically different direction. As Carla struggles to come to terms with the aftermath and bereavement of different kinds and Ben faces the consequences in prison, their stories will be forever entwined.

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