James Norcliffe
Eddy, Eddy by Kate de Goldi (Allen & Unwin, 2022), 288pp, $29.99
Kate de Goldi’s scintillating novel Eddy, Eddy, tells the story of the eponymous Eddy Smallbone, 19, a school dropout and now part-time dog walker and shift worker at New World and his journey through the last months of 2012, two years after the first earthquake that shook Christchurch.
This book’s title is instructive: Eddy suggests swirl and turmoil, while the repetition suggests both exasperation and a plea. Eddy’s life is swirling. He is an orphan, living with his uncle, always referred to as Brain, one of a quartet of mildly eccentric friends and relatives who keep a kindly eye on him. Although he had been a potential scholarship candidate, personal issues compelled him to leave school for menial work; his love life has fallen apart and there are clearly deeper issues that, in the meantime, remain diffuse and unexplained. This mystery provides the subtle tension underlying the plot, and the reveal, when it comes, is more of a sad confirmation than a rug-pull, but striking for all of that. Foregrounded are day-to-day events and the dance of off-beat characters, with their rich and fascinating conversations and minor obsessions. [Read more…]