A dominant theme in both The Labyrinth and The Mother Fault is the strong urge mothers feel to shield and support their children, often at great personal expense.
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey is a work of literary fiction. At its heart is the relationship between Erica and her adult son, Daniel. Early in the novel, we learn that Erica is moving from Sydney to the south coast of NSW to be close to Daniel who is serving a sentence for a serious crime.
Much of the novel deals with Erica’s new life in a remote shack near the sea. As Erica departs from her initial self-imposed solitude, meets her neighbours and plans a labyrinth behind the house, she gradually eases the sense of despair she feels about her son and her inability to help him in prison.
Erica conceives the idea of a labyrinth in a dream. She has been influenced by her psychiatrist father’s belief that building something is the key to recovery from psychological distress. Until Erica starts to plan the labyrinth, her life is consumed by her efforts to provide support to Daniel in prison, efforts he rejects. The building of a labyrinth plays a central part in Erica’s reinvention of herself and her relationship with her son.
The idea of a labyrinth also governs the structure and pace of the novel. The beginning of the novel proceeds at a leisurely meditative pace with action building gradually and picking up speed for the climax and resolution. It is cleverly structured and beautifully written with wonderful evocation of people and place, a worthy winner of the 2021 Miles Franklin Award.
In The Mother Fault, Kate Mildenhall creates a future society, not too distant from present-day Australia, in which the government wields great power over its citizens. When her geologist husband goes missing on a work trip in Indonesia, Mim is unable to obtain any information about his disappearance. She decides to set out with her two children to find him. After she disables their government tracking devices, the three of them are on the run.
During the hazardous journey north, Mim guards and protects her children as much as she can, although she is forced to let them take big risks at times. The children develop in responsibility and resilience as a result, and Mim’s relationship with her children shifts. This happens in a gradual and subtle way in what is essentially a thriller of a novel with powerful descriptions of Australian and Indonesian landscapes.
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