
In 1974, in country Queensland, Charlie Campbell forces a car off an unlit and rarely travelled dirt road into a tree, killing the pregnant driver. The crash wakes Charlie’s sister, Abby, who’d been sleeping in the passenger seat next to him. They were heading to their father’s farm.
A dead woman has no place in either of their plans. They drive away, leaving her on the ground as heavy rain falls. They cannot help her, there are no witnesses, and there is too much at stake.
When they arrive at the farm, the siblings learn that the dead woman, Skye, was their father’s fiance.
They resolve to tell no one what they’ve done — to admit to this crime will cost them their father and their future. Charlie leans on his older sister to lead them out of trouble, to act as the protector she’s had to be since their mother died. But their secret grows more complicated by the day.
Abby, however, is not one to give up. She keeps the single piece of evidence hidden, and decides to redeem herself. She determines to raise Skye’s son as her own, study, and make a difference. She is convinced that she and Charlie can get back on track. But along the way, they need to reconsider exactly what it is they want.
Riptides, Kirsten Alexander
Kirsten Alexander’s second novel evokes 1970s Queensland as it explores the fallout of a tragedy.
In her acknowledgements at the end of Riptides, Kirsten Alexander touches on the difficulties she faced in writing about her home town:
Anyone who grew up in Brisbane understands how complicated a relationship with a city can be. I love the place and couldn’t wait to get away from it, and I’m not sure I fully understand either of those responses.
Riptides reflects some of that tension in an unusual crime novel. In December 1984, Abby Campbell and her brother Charlie are driving to their father’s farm on a dark country road when they swerve into the path of another car, forcing it into a tree. The pregnant driver of that car is killed instantly, and Abby and Charlie make a stupid decision: they flee the scene, hoping heavy rain will obliterate their presence.
Dust swirls in front of our headlights, the only movement in a frozen moment. My window is open but I don’t hear a sound from the surrounding bush, the cicadas and creaky eucalypts dumbstruck. Abby and I stare through the windscreen at the dust, panting, coughing.
Riptides is an exploration of consequences, and delves deeply into how one bad decision can tear your world apart. It affects not just the perpetrators, but their families and friends. The fallout for Abby and Charlie is sometimes dramatic, sometimes minor, but it’s there every day of their lives from that moment on. In the end, it’s not so much the crime but the cover-up that will haunt these people forever.
Set in the 1970s, Riptides uses the period’s social turmoil in Brisbane – and Australia – as a backdrop for the family and their own ructions. It’s the time of Cyclone Tracy and the events leading up to the Whitlam sacking. In rain-sodden, flooded, locked-down, corrupt Queensland (and yes, the corrupt Queensland police), a small community wears the impact of that young woman’s death in a series of blows both expected and unexpected.
The community we meet begins with Abby, her brother Charlie and father John, and expands to include Abby’s husband Mark and their kids; Charlie’s friends Sal and Ryan and Charlie’s life in Bali; close neighbours and friends and, most shockingly of all, John’s fiancée Skye. The early chapters rapidly introduce a series of viewpoints, current events, and their connections – you will need to be paying close attention.
Mark is working on a story about the Whiskey Au Go Go. He was convinced, when the nightclub was firebombed in March last year, killing fifteen people, that the case against the two men arrested was shaky and, after seeing the way they reacted at their trial in October, he’s sure they’re innocent. Mark has hushed urgent phone conversations with his producer, and disappears for hours to interview sources.
From the startling opening chapter as Abby and Charlie flounder at the accident scene, to the revelation that the young woman who died was carrying a baby who would have been their half-sibling, the reader is moved rapidly through a series of short, sharp alternating viewpoint chapters that pull back the curtain on flaws, failings, frailty and human error. From denying knowledge of the car accident or ever being at the scene, through to their father having kept his relationship and the pregnancy a secret, and onwards to the fallout from guilt, lying and sheer tension, nobody in this story is perfect, and everybody does stupid things.
At no stage, however, is there anybody in this group who doesn’t feel deserving of at least some understanding, if not sympathy. For something as fast-paced and committed to forward momentum as Riptides is, it manages to provide plenty of time for contemplation. With an intricate, flawed and complicated cast of characters, and a backdrop of recent history that many of us will remember, Alexander has given herself the perfect setting to explore issues such as blame, guilt, loss, grief, redemption, responsibility, trust, loyalty and the ties that bind. There are also significant touches of menace from outside the community – the police investigation into the accident never really goes away, despite the passing of time, and a seeming lack of real evidence.
In her acknowledgements Alexander pays tribute to the late Queensland writer Andrew McGahan and his book Last Drinks:
Until I read his novel … I didn’t know it was possible to write about my hometown and all its contradictions with honesty and affection.
Last Drinks was a standout novel back in 2000. Funny, shocking and fast moving, it was about what can go wrong in the life of one man, and at that time it was a particularly unusual novel. Riptides is categorised as a crime novel but it’s likewise a very different beast from the usual crime fiction offering. Unlike the McGahan, it isn’t intended to be humorous, but it’s certainly as shocking, revealing what can go wrong in the lives of a lot of people when the maelstrom hits. It should appeal to anybody seeking some understanding of human behaviour at its best and worst.
Riptides, Kirsten Alexander
Australians who grew up during the era in which Riptides is set may recognize a heck of a lot of their own experiences; the long road trips on rubbish roads, the relentless heat, Bali (even as it was back then), perhaps even turning on the TV at Christmas time to news of the devastation wrought upon Darwin by Cyclone Tracy.
Having managed to guilt her pleasure seeking brother Charlie back from Bali to visit their widowed father at his farm, Abby should have been a bit leery of giving the wheel over to someone who had just come off an international flight. The drive out to their Dad’s place in the country is considerable, and there’s a storm on the periphery. With the anticipation of facing bridges made inaccessible by rising water levels, the two however push on.
Abby falls asleep in the passenger seat and as Charlie struggles to keep awake, their car begins to cross the white lines. Waking to the scream of a horn from an approaching driver, the siblings are horrified to see a car hurtle off the side of the road and crash as it attempts to avoid their drifting vehicle. After dragging the young female driver from the wreck, Charlie and Abby are horrified to see that not only is the woman deceased, but that she was pregnant. Thinking quickly, the two decide to drive on as if nothing has happened. It is the next day when the two learn that the person they drove off the road the night before was their irascible father’s new love.
From here the novel narrates, from the dual point of views of Charlie and Abby, the nerve wracking following weeks endured as they wait for the inevitable axe to fall. It is never a question of when they will be found out, but more of how much further damage they can inflict in their charged new reality in which there is still the need to navigate all the usual life pitfalls of fraught romantic and family relationships. Kids, friends, neighbours, work – all are still in the mix of one hot summer in Queensland, 1974.
Riptides features subplots of hidden dope plantations, aggressive Queensland cops on the take, children raised in cult-like communities, the style of reportage common in the 1970’s, the dawning of ideals and sensibilities that marked the era as one of such huge societal change. Riptides is rich in cultural references to how we once were and maintains its terrific sense of place throughout.
Riptides has much to bring to the table as a dramatic work, layering up more complex connections as the action spans outwards from Abby and Charlie and the heartless act that forever binds them in their complicity. Attempting to atone for past sins rarely it seems, results in absolution.
The book does lose a little of its sense of purpose once the huge secret is out, and as with all good dramas, there are characters within that need a good talking to as they meander about. The female characters make a lot more sense in Riptides, ie Abby is trying to return to study after having too many kids too young, the lush neighbour, the female disciple from the dope growing community that has an unnerving way of not taking no for an answer. The men go on hare brained schemes, ignoring their responsibilities and the bigger issues that are beginning to become screamingly urgent as time goes on and as one determined cop won’t leave the family alone.
A novel that explores the ramifications of extreme acts of self preservation, Riptides is a compelling read with the beating heart of a shared secret threatening to explode forth and destroy all.
Riptides is the second novel for Australia based Canadian author Kirsten Alexander.