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Love is important, of course. But I suspect that the reason the riches of the English language don't include any words to describe the kinds of love that matter to us is because the Brits, and those of us that retain a bit of Brit despite many years elsewhere, tend to retain some reserve about it. Of course we desire, and sometimes enjoy the love for which our language is lacking: the love of lovers, of long-term spouses and partners, of parents, of children, of siblings, of best friends, of fur babies and even for horses, plus the love for substitutes for all of these when they fail us as they so often do. (Well, not dogs, and I am not joking. My dear old music teacher loved dogs more than people all her life, and they never failed her. They repaid her with devotion till they died.)
But equality in love — the opportunity to find it, feel it, be swamped by passion, to marry or partner, to make a family, to muck it up or to lose it, that's a different thing. Being denied love because you're the wrong one, or the wrong colour, or the wrong class, or the wrong religion or the wrong gender — when authors tackle that, whether in Pygmalion or Coonardoo, I am interested. Especially if there are institutional barriers getting in the way of a fundamental human right.
Marlo, Jay Carmichael's follow-up to the well-regarded Ironbark (2018), reveals the hostile environment of 1950s Melbourne for a young man discovering his sexuality when the laws of the land denied him the right to be. It's a very powerful, moving novella, tracing the coming-of-age of Christopher, a young gay man escaping the constrictions of the small Gippsland town of Marlo. Although this is a tender story written with dignity and hope, Marlo makes it impossible not to feel angry about the anguish of the two lovers, who are negotiating fear of rejection, of detection, of mockery, of police and community brutality, of press condemnation and of judicial punishment.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/09/13/marlo-by-jay-carmichael/… (more)