Amy has only ever known what life is like in the Clearing. She knows what's expected of her. She knows what to do to please her elders, and how to make sure life in the community remains happy and calm. That is, until a new young girl joins the group. She isn't fitting in; she doesn't want to stay. What happens next will turn life as Amy knows it on its head.
Freya has gone to great lengths to feel like a 'normal person'. In fact, if you saw her go about her day with her young son, you'd think she was an everyday mum. That is, until a young girl goes missing and someone from her past, someone she hasn't seen for a very long time, arrives in town.
As Amy and Freya's story intertwines the secrets of the past bubble up to the surface. This rural Aussie town's dark underbelly is about to be exposed and lives will be destroyed.
In the Clearing, J.P. Pomare
I distinctly remember years ago, standing in a bank queue behind a small, blonde, immaculately turned out woman, who I eventually recognised as Anne Hamilton-Byrne. At the time I mused why it was that nobody had written Australian crime fiction about the sorts of cults that she was responsible for. Even then, in the outer Melbourne fringes, we'd all heard stories about the odd goings in her circle, we knew about the blonde children, and we knew it was dodgy. Alas we didn't find out until many years later just how dodgy, how cruel, how manipulative, and how utterly unbelievable the whole thing was.
Forward many many years later and New Zealand born, Australian based, Ngaio Marsh award winning author, J.P. Pomare has written a novel about the way that cults work, the controlling behaviour, their methods of "recruiting", and the damage that they cause.
IN THE CLEARING is told from two different points of view. Firstly Amy, a teenager and long-term member of a reclusive community led by the charismatic Adrienne, or 'The Queen' as they refer to her. The group are a classic cult setup - mistrust of anybody outside is encouraged, community rules are brutally upheld, and there is plenty of sexual and psychological manipulation going on. Secondly there's Freya, a yoga teacher, living near the river on a small property that she is battling heat and drought on. She lives with her young son, and there are very few people that know she has a second, older son that she lost touch with many years ago. She has a large guard dog and she's hyper-vigilant, for reasons that eventually become clear. When a young girl goes missing from the area it's Freya who has seen odd glimpses of unexpected behaviour, and it's Freya who has some very particular suspicions.
Littered with subtle misdirection, building separate storylines into a complex web, IN THE CLEARING is a masterclass in psychological thrillers. The pace starts out purposeful and very deliberate, pulling the reader into investing in the lives of these two women. If there's something that J.P. Pomare seems to have quite a skill for - it's writing complex, flawed, involving and deeply engaging female characters. As the tension builds there is real fear to be felt here, all the while wondering exactly what these two women have, or haven't done, and what they both would be capable of.
Cleverly paced, intricately woven and unexpectedly complex, IN THE CLEARING is a slow burner, until you find yourself not being able to put it down at all. I confess to having read it in two huge gulps, way into the night, lights blaring, the vision of that small, blonde woman in the bank queue never far from my mind.
If you're interested there is now a documentary series on the ABC that goes into the background of the group known as "The Family" https://iview.abc.net.au/show/cult-of-the-family
IN THE CLEARING has been shortlisted for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.
The entire shortlist for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel is:
Tugga's Mob, Stephen Johnson
Aue, Becky Manawatu (also shortlisted for Best Novel)
The Nancys, R.W.R. McDonald (also shortlisted for Best Novel)
Into the Void, Christina O'Reilly
The entire shortlist for the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel is:
Whatever It Takes, Paul Cleave
Girl From The Treehouse, Gudrun Frerichs
Aue, Becky Manawatu (also shortlisted for Best First Novel)
The Nancys, R.W.R. McDonald
In The Clearing, J.P. Pomare
The Wild Card, Renee
In the Clearing, J.P. Pomare (review by Andrea Thompson)
What is always surprising about cults is that they consistently manage to attract seemingly intelligent people who leave their ordered lives to join bizarre communities run by petty tyrants with delusions of grandeur. What is sadly not surprising is that at the centre of cults there are often innocents, the children.
There’s a few plot devices or themes that can pop up in crime fiction which are not for everyone. Cults might be one of those for you, as they usually are for me. In the Clearing is based on a real-life cult, an Australian new age group known as ‘The Family’. I knew very little going into this read about the group, other than that the kids of The Family all had bleached blonde hair ala village-of-the-damned, and that it all began somewhere in the late 1960’s. It’s suggested that you conduct your Wiki diving perhaps after reading Pomare’s book, as too much prior knowledge going in could detract from your enjoyment of this read.
In the Clearing features two first person narratives. Amy is a teenage member of a reclusive community led by Adrienne, a commanding and charismatic figure referred to as ‘the Queen’ and considered by her devoted followers to be the living reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Amy has taken on the group’s mistrust of all those who live outside of the clearing and that vigilance must always be upheld. Brutal punishments are doled out to any member who breaks their rules, and those rules are in place to keep their ways hidden from those who might seek to tear it all down.
Freya lives with her young son by the river, working as a yoga teacher and managing her property in the heat of summer. Some in the town know that Freya has two sons, and that Freya hasn’t seen her eldest in many years. When a young local girl goes missing, Freya’s suspicions are sent into overdrive. Freya is quite certain that an old ghost from her past has come to visit.
The misdirections employed In the Clearing are subtly delivered and it is upon reflection that you will realize how clever they were. Freya’s chapters features a countdown to some cataclysmic event, and it is evident that Amy is heading for the point of no return, illustrated via the inclusion of excerpts from her journal. We hold fear for both of them.
Pomare has written a powerful and accomplished second novel that takes a firm hold of your attention from the first chapter. In the Clearing masterfully cleaves a path to the truth with the linkage between the book’s two narrators shocking to realize when it all becomes clear. The pace of the novel is purposeful and deliberate, information slowly eked out to the reader who becomes increasingly invested in the two who seem utterly alone whilst under serious threat.
If you’re read the work of Inga Simpson before, you may find this book reminds you of her 2015 book, Nest.
New Zealand born author J.P. Pomare, now living in Melbourne, has hosted a writing podcast since 2015 and has been published in various literary journals. Call Me Evie, Pomare’s best selling crime novel debut, was the winner of the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award (NZ) for Best First Novel.