Step onto the chariot that is Gregory Day’s Archipelago of Souls and canter through the dark emotions and turgid ruminations of a man’s troubled soul. Like other soldiers returned from World War II, Wesley Cress carries a burden of unspeakable trauma. Serving as an Australian soldier in the underground resistance of German-occupied Crete, he’s confronted with the brutality of war and the heinous acts man is capable of committing – including his own.

In the aftermath of this experience, he seeks distance in the wild and remote landscape of King Island, Tasmania. There he stakes his claim on a plot of land called Wait-a-While, a fitting name for a place to seek refuge. But far from offering him an escape, it becomes a purgatory where an undercurrent of tumultuous emotions churn and fester, rearing their ugly heads in the form of an infected tooth that must be lanced.

On a bender at the local pub – intent on anaesthetising his pain – he finds the unwelcome and surprising counsel he needs. He must confront his demons and purge his story through the cathartic act of writing. The confession that emerges holds his most pained and private revelations. He shares them with Leonie Fermoy, an islander with her own anguish to bear.

Underpinning this real human drama is an allegory steeped in myth and intuition. Wesley’s relationship with the feminine also requires healing and, like the hero Theseus, he must traverse the labyrinth to rescue the maiden in order to find the redemption he needs.

This is an eloquent, emotionally complex and layered work firmly grounded in human experience and yet reaching towards the divine.

Natalie Platten