Kinglake-350 by Adrian Hyland.

Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2011.

I thought long and hard about whether to review this book. In the end I decided to go ahead and do it.

The hesitation came from an understanding that the contents of this book will be very confronting to many in Kinglake. Some have decided that memories of Black Saturday are best not recalled; others badly affected by the events of that day have made progress in dealing with their situation and such a book may plunge them back into the very place from which they have successfully fled; yet others cannot escape the memories, some part of them not wanting to; and there will be those who have moved on but remain interested in the details and explanations about the tragic enigma that was Black Saturday.

Yet the book should be reviewed, and if manageable, read by people from Kinglake who are best placed to understand it.

So first, a warning: If you are likely to be upset by a recapitulation of the events of that day, do not read the book. If you have a counsellor of some kind, discuss with them the likely impact on your psyche of reading this book.

Although we lost our house in the fires, my partner Vivien and I were not in Kinglake on the day. We tried to get back in the afternoon but were stopped by a police blockade in Whittlesea. I have only been able to read this book in short bursts, but Vivien read it in a couple of days and pestered me to do the same. Human differences.

Firstly, this is a very good book, well crafted, and combined with a great deal of research made relevant and readable by the author. If you yourself are a writer or aspire to become one, then this book could well be used as a template of how to write a non-fiction thriller. The author is himself a writer of crime fiction and also a teacher of writing. He has done his preparation well.

The plot is ready-made. We have a catastrophe in the making, stalking a rural community which is initially unaware of what is happening; then comes awareness; the beast arrives and people are caught unawares; there is panic in the chaos, confusion abounds, luck starts to play a hand; main characters emerge, some as leaders, some as tragic victims; we follow key characters with asides to their personal lives and there is well placed analysis of what the beast is all about according to the scientists; then battle is joined with this beast; much of it futile, some successful, but always we are left with the impression that it is the beast that is calling all the shots. Survival and decimation follow for the rural community, then the beast moves on, eventually to be overcome not by human agency but by the simple laws of physics – it burns itself out.

We reflect on what has happened: those who survived with their loved ones are grateful to somebody or something: stunned disbelief and grief are the only emotions for many others. For some there will be only grief from that time on. As we all know, this is not a story with a happy ending because ultimately this is not a work of fiction; it is not a thriller where good triumphs over evil and everything is tied together with a neat ribbon at the end.

It is just that it is written with the technique of the thriller writer, and it works, which is why I could only read it in short bursts.

For me, one of the most frightening moments comes when Frank, the Crew Leader of a Kinglake-West fire truck goes up to the top of a rise in Coombs Road and looks out across and down the slopes to Whittlesea, only to see the all-devouring fires coming straight for him. This is the arrival of Shiva, the Hindu God of destruction. At that moment you know Kinglake is doomed.

Because a story flows along easily, the plot unreeling, the characters playing their part, there is a tendency to think it must be pretty easy to write like that. It is actually quite hard to do and the author is to be commended for his successful efforts. There is fine writing involved in making you feel that you are there with Drew Barr and Angie O’Connor at the Lorelei Homestead; with Tim Huggins and his family as they fight the fire; with the anguish of waiting for news about their families by people like Police Officers Roger Wood and Cameron Caine. As a reader I felt an impotent rage at what had happened – but what dinosaur could have stopped the asteroid coming to wipe out all life? You cannot even get out of the way. At most there was only ever going to be a possibility of survival. Perhaps surviving is a victory of sorts.

What do you do with this book besides read it? Firstly, it stands as a record of the events of that day. Not complete, not definitive, but a record. Secondly it allows the independent reader to understand and feel what it may have been like to be caught up in the horrors of that day. We have bought numerous copies of the book to give to friends and family who have helped us so much after we lost everything. We want them to understand what happened and how important their help was to us and all the others. We have done our bit to boost the sales of the book and maybe the author (usually inhabiting the lower reaches of the publishing totem-pole) will get some increased royalties.

The book will also make an astonishingly good translation to film. Perhaps the script is already written.

Humans do not like chaos. Our history has been an attempt to impose order on an underlying reality which often treats us with contempt and goes about doing as it will. The decisions we make in life, our plans, our use of reason to manage chaos, buy us some relief in the short to medium term, some predictability. Then along comes something like Black Saturday.