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Book Club
This month our book club pick is The Serpent’s Skin, a novel of overcoming male power, the strength of sibling bonds and the secrets that can haunt a family, from debut author ERINA REDDAN.
ABOUT THE BOOK
It’s a cold and wintery night in 1968 and 10-year-old JJ’s mother isn’t home.The cows are milked, the pigs fed, and her dad won’t answer any questions.
Sarah is the lifeblood of their family, and her absence throws everyone off course:Tessa takes charge,Tim gets in trouble, Philly retreats, and JJ blames herself.Their father works hard to keep up appearances, but something’s not right. It’s always been JJ’s job to cause trouble, and when she can’t leave the clues alone, her sleuthing wreaks havoc in their tight-knit community, and she swears off troublemaking for good.
Fourteen years on, JJ has a new life, a loving partner and a good job. But she puts it all in jeopardy when she stumbles across a chance
to solve the dark mystery of her childhood. While pretending to have made peace with it, she organises a final farewell for her mother so they can all put the past behind them.Will the explosive truth finally set them free? •
The Serpent’s Skin by Erica Reddan is published by Pantera Press
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Would you like Erina Reddan to join your book club catch-up in person or by zoom?
Email us at editor@goodreadingmagazine.com.au and include your contact details (email address, phone number), approximate numbers of members in your club and we’ll pass this on to the author.
Next Month's Book Club Pick
Nic is a 45-year-old trivia buff, amateur nail artist and fairy godmother to the neighbourhood's stray cats. She's also the owner of a decade's worth of daily newspapers, enough clothes and shoes to fill Big W three times over and a pen collection which, if laid end-to-end, would probably circle her house twice. She'd put her theory to the test, if only the pen buckets weren't currently blocked in by the crates of Happy Meal toys and the towers of Vegemite jars, take-away containers and cat food tins.
Nic's closest relationship is with her niece Lena. The two of them meet for lunch every Sunday to gossip about the rest of the family and bitch about work (they're both checkout chicks: Lena just for now, Nic until they prise her staff discount card from her cold, dead hands).
One Sunday, Nic fails to turn up to lunch and when Lena calls she gets a disconnection message. Arriving at the house she hasn't visited in years ('Too far for you to come, hon. Let's meet in the middle.') she finds her aunt unconscious under an avalanche of stuff.
Lena is devastated that her beloved aunt has been living in such squalor all this time. While Nic is in hospital, she gets to work cleaning things up for her. Her first impulse is to call in the bulldozers and start searching Gumtree for a roomy caravan. But with the help of her reluctantly recruited brother, Will, she gets the job done.
This heroic effort is not appreciated by the plastered up, crutch-wielding Nic. She returns to an empty, alien place unrecognisable as her home and the unbearable pity of her family who have no idea what they've destroyed. How can she live in this place without safety and peace? And how can she ever forgive the niece who has betrayed her?
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