The Anatomy of Wings

Karen Foxlee

Jennifer Day has lost both her sister and her singing voice, but there’s more; her father and mother are unreachable.

They have retreated into a world of sadness and her noisy, persistent grandmother has, following a terrible row, been excommunicated from the family home.

Foxlee, a qualified nurse, provides a deeply insightful depiction of an Australian family’s shock and grief at the sudden death of a 14-year-old girl and, at the same time, a poignant, luminous portrait of rebellious female adolescence.

It’s the early 1980s in the town of Nowheresville, Queensland. Beth Day, the startlingly beautiful, formerly well-behaved eldest of three daughters, has become unrecognisable: drinking, losing her virginity, hanging out with the “tough girls”, getting expelled from school and rowing violently with her mother.

The discovery of Beth’s broken body amidst the smashed bottles and cigarette butts at the foot of the local water tower devastates her family and friends and catapults her younger sister Jennifer on a precipitous journey out of childhood.

Jennifer doesn’t really understand what happened. Eventually, in a bid to recover her voice — and come to an understanding of what has happened her family — Jennifer begins to retrace her sister’s final steps.

The last year of Beth’s life is narrated by this 10-year-old bird-lover and fact-finder as Jenny gradually begins to separate out her own childish memories from the often isolated adult recollections.

Told with charm, understanding and humour, this is an unsentimental but strangely endearing story of girls growing up in a remote mining town. Fabulous stuff.