Peter Temple's Truth - expletive inspiring...

There’s a very good reason critics have been falling over themselves to praise Peter Temple’s new novel, Truth: it’s sublime.

It’s not often I read the last page of a book, close the cover and use an expletive to express how good it was. (The colourful language was partially a flow on of the abundance of profanity in the book, and mostly the fact it really was the best way to describe how impressed I was).

Temple is a master at fusing literary and genre writing. Truth is a gritty page-turning crime novel. It’s also a surprisingly moving study of the frailty of machismo. The Australian Review’s Peter Craven said last year that The Broken Shore “is a crime novel the way Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses is a western”.

Truth has been described as sequel of sorts to Temple’s award-winning 2005 novel, The Broken Shore. But while it features some of the same characters (and even gives a nod to his earlier fictional creation, Jack Irish), it can be read as a stand alone story.

The central character is Stephen Villani, a peripheral character in The Broken Shore, who is now the head of Homicide for the much maligned Victorian Police. Over a few scorching summer days, Villani must face personal and professional crises as he simultaneously deals with a series of brutal murders, corruption in his own ranks, and the disintegration of his family, all while bushfires bear down on Melbourne.

It all starts with the murder of a young woman in the city’s newest luxury high-rise, followed by horrific torture killings of three hard-core drug-dealing criminals. As Villani and his fractured team investigate, he finds himself heading into murky political waters.

Villani’s world is populated by politicians on the knife edge, charismatic entrepreneurs, well-connected journalists and seedy underbelly criminals.

For those unfamiliar with Temple’s sparse prose, it can take time to settle into his rhythm and storytelling style.

As a reader, you just have to dive in and hang on, even if you have no idea who’s in a particular scene or even why. He’s a realist in the true sense. In reality, we don’t have internal monologue to provide exposition, and so it is with his characters. But patience is rewarded – often spectacularly.

Although there are crimes to be solved – and Temple gets to them – he’s primarily concerned with Villani’s personal challenges. Truth is about fathers and sons, and damaged relationships. It’s about hard men and the frailty inherent in them. It’s about authority and power, and the way men measure each other and demand respect.

When it comes to dialogue, Temple is a master. So much is conveyed with so few words. Villani, in particular gets some wonderfully wry lines.

When he asks his offsider, Bickerts about wellness spas, the detective replies:
“Respect your body. Think positive thoughts. Live in the moment.”
Villani: “What if the moment is absolutely shit?”

Or when the forensics guy gives his report about a crime scene: “Man near entrance is shot in the head at close range from behind. The other two, multiple stab wounds, genitals severed, other injuries. Also head and pubic hair ignited, shot, muzzle in mouth. Three bullets recovered, 45 calibre.”
Villani: “So you can’t rule out an accident?”

There are definitely a lot of characters – too many, to be honest – but every one and every piece of information provided is important. Nothing here is superfluous to the story. All the dots connect in the end. And brilliantly so.

Melbourne’s politicians, media and police hardly come up shining (and recent headlines make the bleak picture painted in Truth all the more disturbing), and yet Temple offers redemption for drug-crippled city in the form of honest, if not heavily flawed, men and women.

Truth had me marveling at its cleverness and honesty, and left me with a great sense of satisfaction at how it all came together. (As mentioned earlier, it also left me foul mouthed for a day or two – Villani and his mates certainly don’t talk sweetly to each other…).

I loved the Jack Irish series (particularly Temple's debut Bad Debts), and enjoyed The Broken Shore, but Truth is now without question my favourite novel, from one of my favourite authors.

Have novels replaced religion?

In the most recent Australian Literary Review, Delia Falconer suggests the decline of God as a source of meaning in the West has occurred side by side with the rise of the novel.

She makes the observation as the opening statement in her review of literary critic James Wood’s book “How Fiction Works”.

It’s an especially relevant comment, given Wood believes fiction has taken over as the measure of authenticity and power of the sacred. He says although fiction requires a different kind of belief to religion, it creates a parallel sense of “the real”.

It’s true that society today looks to narrative to understand and find meaning in the world. We turn to television, film, poetry and theatre to explore and analyse issues and ideas. In this context, the novel is as powerful as ever.

And this raises interesting questions about the place of narrative in religion, and why religion longer has the power it once had in the West.

Falconer says that for Wood, the best novels seem to create an approximate reality so intense and morally driven, that they may temporarily mend the world as a godless "broken estate". (And obviously, Wood is picking his reading material from the literary section, although I have no doubt there are religious experiences to be had in chick lit…)

Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr (who I’ve mentioned before on this blog), believes the decline of popularity of Christianity in particular has been the result of perverting the religion’s original narrative.

He notes that while Eastern nations are – generally – deeply proud and protective of their religious heritage (be it Islamic, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist), Christian nations in the West tend not to be.

Rohr believes the reason is that the narrative at the heart of Christianity has been turned into a bad novel: the good guys win, the bad guys lose. When instead, he says the narrative of the New Testament is about sacrifice, suffering, transformation, and redemption. It’s not about “us” and “them”. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s not even about getting it right. Quite the opposite.

I agree with Wood that effective narrative has the power to move people in ways that are essentially spiritual.

It’s a shame so many of our spiritual leaders have forgotten that lesson, and turned Christianity into a narrative devoid of its original revelation and power.

(Image: Daniel Marsula/Post-Gazette)

A taste for crime

I've never really considered myself a great fan of the crime genre. And maybe I'm still not. But I'm definitely a fan of Australian crime writer Peter Temple.

Temple has been writing tightly-crafted crime novels since 1995, stunning critics, winning fans, and bagging four Ned Kelly Awards (more than any other writer) and a Vogel Award, among others.

I discovered him recently when I read his latest release, The Broken Shore (another recommendation from the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club), which could just as easily sit on the literary fiction shelf.

The story features Joe Cashin, a former homicide detective, still recovering from severe injuries incurred in a botched Melbourne stake-out. Sent home to run the small police station in Port Monro on the Victorian coast, he expects a quiet life.

Then rich Charles Bourgoyne, the local benefactor, is bashed and everything seems to point to three boys from the nearby Aboriginal community. Cashin is unconvinced and as tragedy unfolds relentlessly into tragedy, he finds himself holding onto something that might be better let go.

Temple's grasp of voice and place is mesmerising, his characters are Australian without being stereotypical, and he creates pervasive, slow building suspense.

It turns out these are Temple's trademarks. While on holidays, I also read Dead Point, part of Temple's series featuring world weary lawyer Jack Irish. I devoured this novel even quick than the other. I particularly liked that the narrative is first person, and Jack is a complex character whose morality is clear, even if the company he keeps is often murky.

Temple's writing has its own rhythm to it. His humour is dry, his violence graphic, and his physical descriptions wryly amusing.

The basis of his novels are crimes that eventually will be solved, or resolved, one way or another, but what you find yourself more interested in are his characters, the choices they make, and the seedy worlds they often inhabit, or must venture into.

As the Sun Herald said, Temple is not just one of Australia's best crime novelists, "he's one of our best novelists full stop.

Anyone else a fan?