Fury and Resilience

Fury, a memoir by Kathryn Heyman, seized my attention from the start. In the initial scene, Heyman presents her younger self standing on the boom of a fishing trawler, lashed by waves in a life-threatening storm in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Her use of sensory language was so effective, I felt sea-sick with every rise and fall of the waves.

The memoir tells the story of how as a twenty-year-old, Kathryn hitchhiked north to the top of Australia to escape her past. My heart was in my mouth as she took risk after risk until the opportunity to join the crew of a fishing trawler presented itself. Her voyage on the trawler turned out to be both a test and a turning point.

Before reading this book, I knew Kathryn Heyman as an excellent teacher of creative writing, encouraging, informed, lively and fun with a great love of words. I had no idea of the difficult time Kathryn experienced as a child and a young woman. In Fury she credits this love of language and story with saving her.

Not all scenes in Fury are life-threatening. Heyman’s observations of people she meets are often very funny. She describes truck drivers, deckhands and skippers, a whole range of Northern Territory characters who, like her, are running away from something. The first meal she produced as a cook on the trawler forms the basis for an hilarious scene.

My only quibble is with the title. Fury seems too strong a word for the dominant emotion I encountered in this book. The younger Kathryn Heyman comes across as more adventurous, curious, and savvy than the current title suggests. Ultimately, this memoir is a celebration of the author’s ability to recover from trauma and remake herself through storytelling.