Too Much Lip
Location, Location, Location
Melissa Lucashenko’s ‘Too Much Lip’ shows how integral the physical world is to fiction. In this novel place and setting, inseparable from the characters they have shaped, create the atmosphere, motivate the action and drive the plot. They are infused with symbolism and metaphor.
We become immersed in the landscape: the triple peak of Mt Monk, the broad sweep of cattle country, and above all, the river. ‘The Salter holy water flowed past Mt Monk and Durrongo on down the flood plain through Patterson.’ Specific details ground the story: paspalum, palms and wattles; crows, snakes, and cane toads. The climate, steaming February making way for humid March and clothes dripping with sweat, informs every scene.
The historical, social and economic context of the towns within this landscape have shaped the characters. Here, ‘Christmas passed with the usual quota of street brawls, fierce hangovers and car accidents up and down the Far North Coast. Ken punched out the wrong redneck and got barred from the pub for a month. New Year exploded in brief scattering of fireworks over the Patto showground’. The main protagonist, Kerry Salter and her family have always been ‘other’ in this setting, Bundjalung dealing with multigenerational trauma amongst ‘whitenormalsavages’. By viewing it through their eyes, we experience their sense of alienation and resentment and understand the context for their actions.
Lucashenko uses the house with its fibro walls and iron roof, ‘rust creeping into more panels each wet season’, to bring the characters to life and as a metaphor for their lives. Ken’s character is revealed through the half-mown lawn’s ‘lopsided mohawk’ where he ‘had run out of the nominal motivation he’d had to begin with’; a louvre replaced with ply where he’d chucked a stubby through it in anger; and his rusty bombs clustered beneath the leopard tree. Similarly, Pop is revealed through the betting slips and cans next to his makeshift bed. The extended family is introduced through photos on the TV cabinet and the side of the fridge.
Acts of growth and redemption and plot points are embodied in the house. Before the party the bombs are towed to the back of the yard and Ken pays the bills, ‘getting rid of the scolding bits of paper on the side of the fridge’. The house fire marks a nadir in the plot before it’s resolution.
The emotional and symbolic core of the story and the driver of its plot is Ava’s island, the Salter family’s sacred place and repository of their family history and mythology. ‘Her native church was built right here of rock and sand and feather and bark and moss’.
The island is rendered through the senses - the hoop pine’s dark shadow; the sound of swirling water, the pock pock of frogs and the waark of crows; the feel of the breeze and the rich dark earth; the smell of gum leaves and wattle blossom and a ‘faint fishy tang.. mixed with the earth smell rising off the mossy rocks’.
Conflict in the plot arises from the threat to the island, heralded by the sound of cockatoos screeching, a dog barking and the buzz of a 4wd barrelling along the gravel. It is also resolved on the island, symbolised by the defeat of the shark and a discovery smelling of hope.
Lucashenko’s ‘Too Much Lip’ demonstrates how much heavy lifting setting and location perform in writing. More than mere background, they are imbued with meaning and have a strong role in driving the characters and the action.