Book Review
Signs of Damage
by Diana Reid
As one of Australia’s youngest and most successful authors, Diana Reid is not to be underestimated. Reid considers exactly what message she wants to send. Each of her novels is a parcel of activism with an issue at the core to be discussed. Reid writes to illustrate heartbreak, or misused power, or trauma. Her work has an anthropological element to it in that if we understand this particular action, then we will get this particular result. I believe this is what draws so many of us to Reid’s type of writing: it seems evidence based, it seems real. Sally Rooney’s writing, as an example, has a similar impulse.
In her third novel, Reid is focused on childhood trauma and the long-term effect this can have on one’s body. It is a clever story that begins when Cass, a 13-year-old girl, travels to the south of France with her friend’s family. At the end of the holiday, Cass is missing and found several hours later, locked in an underground space. As she’s discovered with no visible signs of injury, the incident is seemingly dismissed. Years later, at a reunion of sorts (a funeral), Cass collapses and everything begins to unravel right back to that moment, or to put it another way, to that beginning.
On the one hand, this is a fast-paced book reminiscent of a crime novel, centred on a family that hides secrets from one another. Don’t all families? On the other hand, throughout the tale, questions are raised and every action has a corollary story. Every butterfly wing reverberates through the universe. Does it help if we understand specific incidents or do we pay anyway with our bodies, our hearts – our lives, even? Signs of Damage expects us to consider these questions, and like all compelling novels, answers none of them, but rather holds up a mirror for us to examine the scene
