Days of Innocence and Wonder is Lucy Treloar’s third novel. Her voice is strong and assured. She proceeds at her own pace in this novel which builds slowly to its frightening climax.
The protagonist, Till, is a Melbourne woman in her twenties. She carries with her the memory of an incident in her childhood that involved her best friend at preschool. What happened haunts her and has affected her whole attitude to life.
Till decides to move away from the city but she has no clear destination. She drives with her dog and little else through country Victoria and South Australia. She stops at last at an old disused railway station in what appears to be a deserted town far from anywhere. Much of the story lingers on her determined solitude. Till prides herself on her self-sufficiency and her skills in self-defence. Both are to be tested.
Till is drawn as a strong character but so are her parents and the handful of people she encounters in the story. The landscapes of inner-city Melbourne and rural South Australia are additional characters in this contemporary tale. The novel documents the rigours of the extended Covid lockdowns in Melbourne and the decay of many once-thriving country towns.
This is a literary novel to be savoured as much for its telling as for the story itself. The outstanding feature of the writing for me was the detail and originality of its descriptions. The appreciation of small details becomes part of Till’s character as she makes a home for herself in the old station. She observes her surroundings and the people she meets with accuracy and insight while holding herself apart. These are the days of innocence and wonder.
This is a quiet and intense book, propelled by the mystery of how Till can overcome the trauma of her past and her current fears. It is a slow-burning thriller as well as a superb account of Australian urban and rural life in our time.
Days of Innocence and Wonder by Lucy Treloar. Picador, 2023, 336 pages. ISBN 978-1-76098-273-7
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