Blue Hour by Sarah Schmidt
Blue Hour adds another achievement to Sarah Schmidt’s repertoire after her debut novel, See What I Have Done, was received with accolades. As in her first novel, Schmidt’s skill for making readers ponder raw and uncomfortable realities is profound.
Kitty and Eleanor are mother and daughter. We are introduced to Kitty as a young woman, a nurse in the Australian town of Wintonvale during the Second World War. We see her fall in love too quickly, and pursue an unattainable ‘normal’ life with a deeply traumatised returned soldier, George. We see her struggle with the realities of motherhood and marriage, realities which are often omitted from the common narrativeof parenting. She feels trapped by her husband’s instability, and is resentful of her daughter, who is a symbol of this unwelcome situation. I’m sure readers will feel as protective of Eleanor as I did, while maintaining a sympathy for Kitty, who never asked for this version of life.
Despite her toxic upbringing, Eleanor is strong-minded and passionate. She recounts her memories from the driver’s seat of the car as she and her own daughter travel to Eleanor’s beloved blue mountain, a symbol of safety in her life. As we follow Eleanor’s memories from her adventurous childhood to her student years in Melbourne, we learn that in her now-adult life, Eleanor’s own husband is called up to war in Vietnam. She faces becoming a parent alone.
These parallel stories of motherhood against the poisonous backdrop of conflict are nothing short of harrowing. Lightened by touching moments interspersed throughout, they articulate the complexities of emotionally and physically abusive relationships. This is a mother- daughter story which fills the page with all those parts of womanhood the world does not want you to know about – a hard-to- swallow novel that I urge you to read.
