Last year, my grandmother asked me if there was a particular book I wanted from the library while she was there. I nominated The Year the Maps Changed. I’d had the recent delight of working alongside Danielle Binks as part of the organising team for OzAuthorsOnline—a digital platform that allowed spaces for cancelled in-person author events—and was curious to read her debut.
My grandmother’s next communication was that the book looked so interesting, she’d started to read it. Then she messaged me to tell me what a delightful story it was. Finally, I was able to read it. I couldn’t put it down.
The intersection of Fred’s personal story with the meta narrative of the Kosovar refugees’ temporary resettlement was beautifully managed, the story was tightly written and the pacing was perfect. It’s why I was so excited to read Binks’ second novel—a young adult this time—The Monster of her Age.
The story is told from the first-person narration of 17-year-old Ellie, a member of the Lovinger acting dynasty, who returns to her family home in Hobart, Tasmania, because her grandmother is dying. In coming back home to say goodbye to her grandmother, Ellie confronts the trauma that arose from her experience as a young child playing the monster in a cult horror movie alongside her grandmother. This personal journey is assisted by Riya, a young film buff she meets in a chance encounter.
What I really loved about this story was the delicacy with which it explored how loving and being hurt by a family member can simultaneously exist within us. Ellie’s struggle to unpick her complicated feelings toward her grandmother (and consequently, the manner in which she comes to grips with her own status as a child celebrity) is tenderly explored, unpacking with genuine finesse and nuance the realisation which is a challenging, yet core, component to growing up: the adults in our lives are flawed and themselves vulnerable to errors in judgement. Similarly, the difficulty in facing the loss of a key family member is beautifully shown. The strength of The Monster of her Age thus lies in the depiction of the Lovinger family relationships and the way they navigate their grief. While the romance between Ellie and Riya is deftly handled, as is the perspective Riya offers Ellie on horror as a genre, the power of films, and Ellie’s own legacy as a child actor which encourages Ellie to challenge her underlying assumptions, Ellie’s relationships with her family were simply so well done that it was this which really kept me eagerly turning pages.
In exploring the question of Ellie’s understanding of herself, and of her relationship to film, Binks interweaves references to various horror films across the story. Most of the films are real, although the ones in which Lottie, Ellie’s grandmother, starred, are made up—Binks acknowledges in an author’s note at the novel’s conclusion that she ‘decided to envision an alternate filmic history’ for the Australian film industry. Depending on your appreciation for and knowledge of them, the pop culture references enhance the (quite interesting) major theme about the horror genre’s relegation of women to helpless victims, unless they take on a gender-busting role and, in essence, kick ass. The sheer number of references can occasionally feel overwhelming and throw the reader out of the narrative as they try to place the film, or work through its plot and relevance to the narrative point being made. Perhaps most difficult at times was one of the central points of tension across the book, the fictitious horror film Blood & Jacaranda—in which a younger Ellie played the central monster, starring opposite her grandmother. The narrative of Ellie’s current struggles can feel interrupted by questions that naturally arise in the reader’s mind about the plot of the film. It felt at times like it was a reference to a piece of pop culture of which I had no knowledge. Elements of it are alluded to across dialogue with other characters— possibly suggesting that Ellie herself does not want to remember the plot (or cannot, given we learn she herself never saw the final product), but I felt this needed to be more clearly articulated for me to understand why there was this gap of knowledge, especially given it was referenced so frequently.
At times, The Monster of her Age didn’t have the same tightness of writing and narrative drive as The Year the Maps Changed, but this could be because the story wasn’t being driven by external actions and events across the middle of the book, which meant there was a sense of aimlessness at one or two points. However, what it arguably captures is the fact that when you’re effectively waiting for someone to die, there is a sense of suspension, of trying to determine what exactly it is you should be doing. Indeed, chapter twenty opens with the sentence, “If grief feels like emotional jetlag, then waiting as someone slowly dies and fades away is like being in a perpetual airport terminal—waiting and waiting”. Yet this wasn’t enough to make me put the book down. Far from it.
Binks’ second offering is a beautiful story about loss, love, and loving your family even when they hurt you. I ripped through it a little over two days. You will enjoy it, too.
The Monster of Her Age is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
Will you be picking up The Monster of her Age? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
In a neo-Gothic mansion in a city at the end of the world, Ellie finds there’s room enough for art, family, forgiveness and love. A coming-of-age story about embracing the things that scare us from the author of The Year the Maps Changed.
How do you ruin someone’s childhood? You let them make-believe that they are a monster. But sooner or later, the mask must come off…
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it’s too late. But forgiveness feels like playing make-believe, and memories are like ghosts.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and at last come to understand her family’s legacy – and her own part in it.
A story of love, loss, family and film – a stirring, insightful novel about letting go of anger and learning to forgive without forgetting. And about embracing the things that scare us, in order to be braver.
