Reviewed By Toni Whitmont, Booktopia Buzz Editor
To read more reviews by Toni Whitmont,
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Darren Groth has been around for a while as an author but it has been
hard to track down his books. That is a shame because his latest novel,
Kindling,
is an absolute stunner.
Kindling is
a one-sit read. Read the first twenty pages and you have no choice but
to stay put until the end. Then you will be lending the book to a
friend, because you are going to definitely have to talk about it.
The story is set on a scorcher of a day in a suburb backing onto the
bush. A fire is bearing down on the community. Our two protagonists are
Kieran and Nate. Mr Incredible also has quite a role to play.
Ten-year-old Kieran is autistic and bears the scars of a house fire in
which his mother died. Nate is his dad, whose days of chart success
with his band have been put aside. His life now is Kieran.
Groth lets the story unfold in the alternating voices of father and
son. One afternoon. Four hours which change everything. Groth’s
strength is his ability to switch seamlessly between father and son,
each character speaking authentically and utterly truthfully. This is
not completely new territory of course. There are shades of Mark
Haddon’s
The Curious Incident of
the Dog in the Night-Time. It is also reminiscent in parts
of Scot Gardner’s
Burning Eddy.
However, Groth does chart territory that is uniquely his own – and he
has a superb sense of pace and timing.
Kindling is
one of the books that you could put into the hands of anyone over the
age of fifteen. I do think the publishers have missed an
opportunity with this one however. They should be selling it with a
bonus box of tissues.
