Read a Q&A with Emily Brugman | The Islands

Emily Brugman grew up in Broulee, on the far south coast of NSW, on the lands of the Yuin people. Her writing has previously appeared in literary journals, magazines and anthologies, including Tracks, the UTS Writers’ Anthology and Lines to the Horizon: Australian surf writing. She currently lives in Mullumbimby, on Bundjalung country, and works at Byron Writers Festival. The Islands, her first novel, is inspired by her family’s experiences living and working on the Abrolhos Islands between 1959-1972.

Today, Emily Brugman is on the blog to answer a few of our questions about The Islands. Read on …

Emily Brugman

Please tell us about your book, The Islands!

EB: The Islands tells the story of the Saari family and the Finns of Little Rat. In the late 1950s, a young man named Onni Saari sets up camp on a remote archipelago 60km off the coast of Western Australia, where the crayfishing industry is in its infancy. The tiny island of Little Rat attracts a small community of Finnish migrants, each attempting to build a future in their own way.

We follow Onni, an industrious and ambitious young man, grappling with the loss of a loved one; his wife Alva, quiet but stoic, seeking a sense of belonging between the ramshackle camps of the islands and the dusty suburban lots of the mainland; and their pensive daughter Hilda, who dreams of becoming the skipper of her own boat. Each chapter is a complete story, offering a new perspective of life on the islands, and giving us glimpses into the worlds of the other fishing families living on Little Rat.

At its core, The Islands is a novel about families, ambition and loss, and the immigrant’s eternal struggle for settlement.

Where did you get the first spark of inspiration for this story? Why was it important to you to tell it?

EB: The novel is inspired by my grandparents’ migrant story. My grandfather was a crayfisherman on the Abrolhos Islands between 1959 – 1972. Although I have never had the pleasure of calling the Abrolhos home, the place has always held an important place in my family’s collective memory. I think the landscapes of our family’s past imprint themselves on us in some way, weaving themselves into the fabric of who we are, even if we haven’t known them in our own lifetimes.

In 2014 I read a book called Islands of Angry Ghosts by Hugh Edwards, which recounts the infamous Batavia shipwreck and mutiny of 1629, and the eventual discovery of the wreck by divers some 300 years later. While reading, my imagination was drawn to the fishing families of the Abrolhos, my own included. What was it like to live on this incredibly remote archipelago, with the knowledge of what had once happened there?

As the work progressed, I found my interest turning from the more gothic themes of the Batavia saga towards the stories of the ordinary people who made up the small crayfishing communities of the Abrolhos. I wanted to know more about the Finns who had worked the crayboats here alongside my grandfather. What had brought them to Little Rat, and where had they ended up? Now I see the book as an homage to my grandparents and the working-class migrant experience, and an exploration of my Finnish identity.

This is a family saga telling the story of the Saari family, Onni, Alva and Hilda. When did they start to take shape in your mind and what was your favourite thing about writing their story?

EB: Onni, Alva and Hilda were originally inspired by members of my family, but have since grown into unique characters in their own right. Modelling my characters off my grandparents and other family members was a helpful jumping off point – it gave me an idea of their basic values but allowed me the freedom to build on their personalities and invent elements of their character to suit the narrative.

What I’ve loved about writing this story is the insight it’s given me into my origins. Both of my Finnish grandparents have passed away, my grandmother in 2004, and my grandfather in 2019. While we were close in some ways, there was a language barrier which always kept us at arm’s length. In a strange way, the writing process allowed me to feel nearer to them. I came to better understand the Finnish character, and therefore the kinds of people they were, and I am.

Is there a character in this book that you particularly relate to? Why?

EB: Onni Saari is the first and last protagonist of the book, and being closely based on my grandfather, he is very close to my heart. I found his character difficult to write at times, because his experience is so far removed from my own. But I love his philosophical outlook, and the questions he asks about life.

What kind of research did you do in order to write The Islands?

EB: The Islands began as part of an Honours thesis in 2016. During that year, I travelled to the Abrolhos on a 6-seater plane with my mother, who had not been back to the islands since she was nine years old. Thanks to the generosity of an old family acquaintance, we were lucky enough to have the chance to stay for five days in a fisherman’s shack on Little Rat, just a few doors down from where my family’s camp once was. The week was spent exploring the island and others by boat, swimming, talking with crayfishers, writing, and eating fresh-caught fish for dinner. During my stay I wrote the outline of five short stories, which, in time, became the foundational chapters of The Islands.

Can you tell us a little bit about your journey towards becoming a writer?

EB: I studied Writing & Cultural Studies at UTS. At the close of my third year I had my first piece of creative writing published in the university anthology – a profile of a bird enthusiast from the far south coast of NSW. In the years following my university degree I worked as a bookseller at Gertrude & Alice Bookshop Café in Bondi Beach, read voraciously, and had a few short pieces published here and there. In 2015 I began writing regularly for the surfing magazine Tracks. My column was called Curious Species, and explored surf culture and the curious ways in which surfers navigate the world. I moved to the Northern Rivers around this time, and began my Honours thesis at Southern Cross University.

I worked on The Islands for six years in total. I submitted a 35 000-word version of the novel to the 2020 Australian Vogel’s Literary Award, and to my great delight was shortlisted. It was after this that I was offered a publishing deal with Allen & Unwin. I remember receiving the call from my publisher Annette Barlow. I was alone at work, and couldn’t help but leap around the office in complete, unadulterated joy. Publication would still be a long way off though (two years in all), with much more writing, editing and proofing to take place.

Who do you most admire in the writing world?

EB: There are two books I greatly admire and which have played a part in the making of The Islands. These are Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, and Drylands by Thea Astley. Both books have inspired the ‘novel-in-stories’ format I have used, with the setting providing the central, unifying thread between recurring characters. Both books also explore the inner-lives of ordinary people. Their characters are wonderfully complex, sometimes acting with compassion, other times with contempt and casual cruelty. Their stories often conjure the universal in the personal, and this is the kind of writing I love best.

What is the last book you read and loved?

EB: I recently read The Golden Age by Joan London and loved it. This is the story of two children, Frank and Elsa, recovering from polio at the Golden Age Children’s Polio Convalescent Home in Perth. London’s loveable protagonist, Frank, a refugee from wartime Hungary, is independent, resourceful and wise beyond his years. The writing itself is patient, gentle and precise.

What do you hope readers will discover in The Islands?

EB: I hope they will discover a unique landscape and way of life, one that feels alive and true and lingers in the readers’ mind. I would be glad if readers gained an appreciation of the Finnish character, and a curiosity about this little known group of Australian migrants. I hope they will take pleasure in my characters’ quirks, and feel heartache for their sorrows, that they will care about Onni, Alva and Hilda, and come along with them as they examine life, and what it means to be happy. Perhaps they will be prompted to ask similar questions about their own existence.

And finally, what’s up next for you?

EB: I work full-time, so I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to writing at the moment. I do hope to write another novel in the coming years though. I have a few ideas swirling around in my brain – so let’s see which of these persists.

Thanks Emily!

—The Islands by Emily Brugman (Allen & Unwin) is out on the 1st of February.

The Islands

by Emily Brugman

In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure.

Drawn here by tragedy, Onni Saari is soon hooked by the stark beauty of the landscape and the slivers of jutting coral onto which the crayfishers build their precarious huts. Could these reefs, teeming with the elusive and lucrative cray, hold the key to a good life?...

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