Book Review
Highway 13
by Fiona McFarlane
I grew up in Canberra, only a few hours drive from Belanglo State Forest and Berrima. I might be too young to remember the backpacker murders as they were reported, or the conviction of Ivan Milat, but I’ve encountered the tale countless times, in many different ways, often unintentionally. Like most Australians, it exists somewhere in the back of my mind, strange and unwanted, yet somehow ubiquitous.
This kind of mythos is exactly what Fiona McFarlane zeroes in on in Highway 13. Anyone reading the book will be able to tell where she drew her inspiration, but need not anticipate gory rehashings or victim exploitation. Instead, McFarlane presents the reader with visions of the mass scale of the reverberations of such horror and tragedy, surveying the stories of a number of people who have in some way been affected by ‘Paul Biga’ and his crimes. In this way, the book operates more like a collection of short stories with a shared thematic spine than a traditional novel, earning a distinct stylistic character of its own. Some characters are tenuously connected, others more strongly, but all are individually powerful. Under McFarlane’s apt curation, they lend themselves to a bigger picture, allowing her to examine situations from a number of angles without ever infringing on their complexity.
As a book, Highway 13 is disturbing, entrancing, heartfelt and – even though this phrasing is a total cliche – deeply human. Through its chartered course between the 1950s and 2028 and Australia and abroad, it powerfully examines the stories we tell and the reasons we have for telling them, revealing some home truths along the way. It has lingered with me long after I finished reading it, and I expect that it will stay in my mind for a very, very long time. Definitely recommend.
