Plum and Wild Abandon: Reckoning with fragile masculinity

In the last few weeks, two new contemporary novels I’ve read have worked in tandem to have a peculiar effect on me. These books have gone beyond the hallmarks of the contemporary reading experience, one of pathos and the delivery of wit and clarity. They’ve also made me wiser.

It can be enthralling to recognise aspects of the people around you in the characters of novels. When you see yourself in a novel in some way, it can be disturbing — for me, at least. On the surface, I don’t particularly resemble Brendan Cowell’s 48-year-old ex rugby star or Emily Bitto’s 20-something millennial Kerouac wannabe. As you can imagine, they don’t resemble one another either. Reading their stories, however, was a revelation for me. I’ll go into them a bit and try to explain how.

Wild Abandon follows the reckless wanderings of Will, an unremarkable 20-something who throws himself at the expanse of North America, fleeing rejection in Melbourne and the parochial trappings of his regional hometown. Will is having an identity crisis — what some might deem a quarter-life crisis (although it happens to men of all ages and isn’t always a short-term phenomenon). He feels compelled to reach out and grab experience by the testes, as that’s what men of character supposedly do and it would be a moral failing for him to live a life that is insignificant in the eyes of his peers.

The heady adventure begins in New York City where Will is taken into the charge of one his childhood bullies who is now a high-end chef with a lowkey drug problem and strained relationship with a conceptual artist. This placement pushes Will headfirst into the rarefied, commodified and frequently undignified worlds of fine food and art. Consumption is unquestioned, inequality is rushing toward the infinite, and Will doesn’t for a moment question his place in it all. But my goodness does he overthink how he might be perceived by others both near and far as he takes his maiden flight into the skyscraper jungle.

His hunger for a yarn-worthy experience later finds him in small town Ohio in the company of Wayne, a troubled veteran who has become the sole caretaker of an inordinate number of ‘exotics’ — creatures ranging from bears and wolves to baby monkeys and heck of a lot of tigers. The mere existence of this man-eater menagerie is a moral travesty, but through Will’s eager eyes the reader begins to empathise with Wayne and the long-felt hurt and desperation for acceptance that has led him down this path.

Will and Wayne, eager to be loved but afraid to be made vulnerable, are ultimately — dangerously — alike. They are similar also to the indomitable Peter “The Plum” Lum, the ex NRL star with acquired epilepsy who is haunted by dead American poets in Brendan Cowell’s Plum. Peter lived his career on the field to the bitter end, and when he retired he shrugged off the limelight and commentary circuit to trade time between towing jets at Botany and sinking schooners and punching darts with a gaggle of mates down at his local. He hides his illness from his loved ones and quickly gets into a world of trouble. A journey through dark places with some unlikely characters, living and dead, puts Peter on the path to being vulnerable and making peace with his anxieties.

People who know me understand that I err on the softer side of gentle giant — I take pains not to fit the Anglo-Australian male stereotype. Still, I’m every bit as closed off and anxious as the men you’ll meet at the outset of these novels and I’m legitimately scared of what that’ll mean for the years I have to come. Thanks to the miracle of contemporary Australian fiction, though, in particular these two remarkable new books, I have a little bit of wisdom to help me navigate the coming storm. And I didn’t even have to engage in wild animal trafficking or have Sylvia Plath move into my house to get it.

—Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto (Allen & Unwin) and Plum by Brendan Cowell (HarperCollins Australia) are both out now. Signed copies are available while stocks last.

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About the Contributor

Ben Hunter

Ben is Booktopia's dedicated fiction and children's book specialist. He spends his days painstakingly piecing together beautiful catalogue pages and gift guides for the website. At any opportunity, he loves to write warmly of the books that inspire him. If you want to talk books, find him tweeting at @itsbenhunter