I've read a lot of haunting novels before, but really, there's something very unique about this one. Oyster is an excellent novel, one that not only looks at the lives of a small group of people living in the outback, but also examines the madness connected with power, secrecy, religious mania and money. Definitely recommended, this is one of the most thought-provoking works of fiction I've ever read. There's nothing ordinary in terms of novel structure, -- the story is not told linearly, but in bits and pieces of looking backward. The characters aren't warm and fuzzy people, so you may not find people here with whom you can identify. They do jump out in 3-D, however, and to me, that's much more important than finding someone likeable. Overall, I found Oyster to be an excellent novel and I can't wait to get to her other books on my home library shelves. Amazing. Simply amazing. now for the long version:"People see with the madman's eyes. For true madness has this gift, and this potency, that it makes its own complete world. It has its own space. Others can enter it."A man known only as Oyster literally stumbles into the small opal-mining town of Outer Maroo, Queensland a few days before Christmas at 2:23 one afternoon. Clad all in white, his clothing stained with blood, he comes into this little off-the-map outback town and things are never the same again. Neither are the inhabitants of this hidden drought-ridden world of its own, where many of the people are happy to be away from the prying eyes of the government. It is a town cloaked in its secrets, which are not made privy to the reader at the outset. What is made very clear is that something terrible has occurred in this place; as the novel unfolds, just what's happened is revealed little by little. Before Oyster's arrival, the inhabitants of Outer Maroo -- -- the cattle graziers, the opal miners and the members of the Living Word fundamentalist congregation all got along just fine. But once the people allowed themselves to be "seduced" by this man, described by one person as being like"one of those bacterial forces that blindly and ruthlessly seek out the culture that will nourish them," life completely changes, and for the worst. This new, uneasy coexistence is also threatened by the "foreigners" who come into Outer Maroo, at first the swarms of Oyster's followers looking for something meaningful in their lives, and then the ones looking for loved ones who had come there and had never been heard from again. Slowly the "foreigners" begin to outnumber the townspeople, a situation which has potential to threaten those who hold the biggest secrets and the most to lose -- and as young Mercy Given notes, when "Jake Digby occasionally arrives with passengers, ... no passengers ever leave with him again." A teacher brought in for the 13 schoolchildren is only one of their number; the arrival of two more who'd come to search for their children at the beginning of the story will be the last. In this eerie, sometimes verging on the edge of surreal novel, much of what the reader knows is transmitted via Mercy, whose father once led the Living Word congregation. He had built his congregation on the notion that God speaks quietly to each man, and that "No one, no other living soul, can hear what God says to you." With the coming of Oyster, though, Pastor Given's words and his position are usurped by a man who sees the potential of Oyster's usefulness, Dukke Prophet, a man with plenty of secrets of his own and a paranoia that becomes infectious; the Book of Revelation is his testament, hellfire and brimstone are his weapons, and the church is his personal zone of power. I found this book to be absolutely brilliant, and I would definitely recommend it to people who are looking well beyond the mainstream for an incredible read. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, and I have seen many reviews that call it boring and sleep-inducing. However, on a personal level this novel satisfies my need for the very different. I loved this book. That's all I can say.
Janette Turner Hospital had a happy knack of writing books that examined substantial issues of public concern around the time that major events or moral panics were trending. 'Due Preparations for the Plague' was published a short while before terrorism hit the US in a devastating way. 'Oyster' was published a short time before the Heaven's Gate cult committed mass suicide in the US. Hospital drew on the public concern about the events at Waco, Texas with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, Order of the Solar Temple, and other doomsday cults. So on one level 'Oyster' is an interesting and topical exploration into the nature of cults and cult figures. Set in a remote part of Queensland, it also highlights the alienation of outback people from the seats of power and the influence of government. The majority of Australians would say that Queensland is a very different place from the rest of the country. Politically it has certainly gone its own way. Clever, perceptive Hospital picked up on community sentiments prevalent in rural parts of the country around the same time that a charismatic figure, Pauline Hanson emerged from Ipswich, a Queensland country town, into the public spotlight, touting a deeply conservative and revisionist political agenda. Her particular brand of politics, One Nation, touched a nerve in the Australian community and she was swept into Parliament on a wave of conservative backlash. In 'Oyster', Hospital nails the kind of deep veined conservative mentality that exists a long way from the smart cafes and trendy terrace houses of inner city Surry Hills and Balmain, and from the grand edifices of Parliament.Way outback, people do their own thing and have their own values, which are far removed from the thinking of urban elites. How easy then for a charismatic leader to lure gullible types into a separatist movement, and more or less imprison them, with their consent. The story is set in Outer Maroo, an opal mining town in the far south-west of Queensland. The local inhabitants are an eccentric and decidedly unattractive group of people, some of whom are downright evil. Beyond the town, in a remote setting, the charismatic messiah figure, Oyster, has established his own little community. Distraught parents arrive in search of lost teenagers, and get sucked into the morass of Outer Maroo. In contrast to the cult outside of town, the townsfolk have their own kind of religious fervour, courtesy of a bible thumping church leader, and various quirky parishioners. Not many of the characters are pleasant, and the young girl Mercy, whose story is so poignant, is a catalyst for exposing some of their nasty weaknesses.A couple of the characters in this book did not ring true for me, but I adored some of the really weird types, like the people who run the pub, store and post office, where letters go goodness only knows where… Does anyone actually leave Outer Maroo?Rather chilling, this book, but a darned good read.
What do You think about Oyster (1999)?
This is one of Turner Hospital's earliest works. It is a bit less polished than her later works but a great read nonetheless. This novel is set in the outback of Australia, in a town that seems not to officially exist, which shuns outsiders and where people seem to disappear in huge numbers.We switch narrators quite often which is disconcerting at first until we learn to recognise the voices of the characters, which took me a while. The town's deterioration begins with the appearance of Oyster, a self-styled guru preaching peace on earth and the approach of Armageddon. The town is urged to arm itself and to shun all outsiders. Oyster procures an opal mine where the local youth flock to live in community and mine the opals. After a period of peace, Oyster seems to decline into madness and obsession. Rules are tightened, the community becomes more a cult and the young people start disappearing. We discover the story bit by bit as the narrators reveal how the shame of what has happened touches all of their lives. I enjoyed Turner Hospital's ability to tell a story, build tension and her amazing lyricism. Well worth reading, as are her other novels. Her style develops and becomes more streamline.
—Alumine Andrew
Set in the Australian Outback, with powerfully poetic descriptive passages, it's a sometimes confusing novel that shifts voices & moves back & forth in time to convey a disturbing sense of a separate world gone awry (a sort-of Lord of the Flies sense) without explicitly naming until late in the book what had gone awry in the opal-mining religious community led by a charismatic leader (Oyster). The reader only gradually comes to understand the situation, much as the community's residents refused to admit their own complicity in the dark events we gradually come to know. Although the author concedes that religion is capable of inspiring people to great heights as well as great depths, it's only the latter that we see in this novel.
—Marvin
There are a few books that for me epitomise the harsh reality of Australia's landscape and the secrets it hides: Andrew McGahan's The White Earth, Xavier Herbert's Poor Fella My Country, Alexis Wright's Carpentaria and now I'm adding to that list Turner Hospital's Oyster. I loved, loved, loved everything about this book. The subject matter - the uneasy alliance and then conflict between a cult and the small outback town out in the wilds of western Queensland - rang so true. If you have never lived in (or visited) outback Australia it is hard to understand that it can be, particularly in small isolated mining townships, like living in an alternate universe. The normal rules of society don't apply. Turner Hospital captures this essence of the other-worldliness of outback Australia perfectly. The town, its inhabitants, the violence of the landscape and of the people who live in it, particularly to the outsiders who bring the events of the past few years to a head, are all magnificently captured. Just a brilliant book.
—Maree Kimberley
