After the Fire, a Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld
"After the Fire, a Still Small Voice" by Evie Wyld explores the intertwined lives of two generations within the Collard family, juxtaposing the experiences of Frank Collard in the early 21st century and his father, Leon, in the 1960s. Frank, seeking solitude after a breakup, relocates to a shack on the Queensland beach, where he confronts memories of his past and his family's history. His isolation is interrupted by his new neighbors, Bob and Vicky Haydon, who introduce him to the local community, which is grappling with the mystery of a missing girl. As Frank's relationships deepen, he reflects on his troubled past, including his history of violence and his complicated feelings towards his father, who has retreated into a religious community following a lifetime of trauma.
Simultaneously, Leon's narrative reveals the struggles of a young man shaped by his Jewish immigrant background and the horrors of war, leading him to a life marked by loss and disconnection. The novel addresses themes of family legacy, trauma, and the quest for identity amidst the backdrop of societal prejudice and personal demons. As the two men's stories converge, readers witness the reverberations of history and the complexities of familial bonds, culminating in a poignant exploration of healing, remembrance, and the search for redemption.
On this Page
After the Fire, a Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld
- Born: June 16, 1980
- Birthplace: London, England, United Kingdom
First published: 2009
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of plot: 1960s and 2000s
Locale: Queensland, Australia; Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; Vietnam
Principal Characters
Frank Collard, a man who moves to a shack on the beach
Leon Collard, his father, a baker and conscripted soldier
Roman Collard, Leon’s father, a baker and volunteer soldier
The Haydons, Frank’s neighbors
The Story
The story alternates between the perspective of Frank Collard, set in the early twenty-first century, and that of Leon Collard, set in the 1960s.
After his girlfriend, Lucy, leaves him, Frank moves away from the city of Canberra and into "the shack," a primitive dwelling near the beach in Queensland that once belonged to his grandparents. Though he is trying to leave the past behind, returning to the shack triggers memories of his childhood; none of the furnishings have changed, and the sugar wedding-cake sculptures of his parents and grandparents are still there, preserved under a glass bell jar.
The wildness of Frank’s new life is readily apparent: he has his own stretch of beach, frequented by fish and sharks, and a nearby patch of wild sugar cane is home to a mysterious creature that makes ominous noises at night. Frank is quickly befriended by Bob Haydon and his wife, Vicky, who bring him an old refrigerator and help him settle in. Bob also helps Frank get work at the marina in Mulaburry Town, a small Queensland community preoccupied with a missing fourteen-year-old girl named Joyce Mackelly. Joyce had an Aboriginal boyfriend, and racial tensions are apparent at Frank’s workplace and at the local pub.
Frank misses Lucy but feels no desire to find or contact her. He remembers how she tried to push him to reconnect with his father, Leon, who fell into alcoholism and apathy after the death of Frank’s mother. Frank spends most of his time alone near the shack, drinking and fishing. His isolation is periodically broken by his shifts at the marina, where he moves freight on and off of ships. Frank develops a friendship with another worker, Linus, an old Aboriginal man who knew Frank’s grandparents and parents.
Bob and Vicky Haydon invite Frank to spend Christmas with them. While there, he meets their seven-year-old daughter, Sal, who shows up at Frank’s shack the next day and convinces him to pay her to help tend his vegetable patch. They talk about a monster called a bunyip, which Sal says got her sister. As Frank grows closer to the Haydons, he learns that Sal’s older sister died from leukemia, prompting the family to move across the country from Perth, in Western Australia, to the east coast. Frank then reveals to Bob that he was physically violent with Lucy, causing her to leave him.
Frank finally travels to Sydney to see his father and discovers that Leon has sold the bakery and moved to a religious community founded by Billy Graham. At his father’s house, he is surprised to learn that his father has remarried and is now a Bible salesman. He leaves just as his father pulls up to the house.
Upon his return to the shack, Frank is arrested for the suspected murder of Sal Haydon, who has gone missing along with a machete from his shack, as well as for the murder of Joyce Mackelly. He is eventually cleared and finds Sal on the edge of the sugar cane patch, gripping the machete and a dead animal, telling him she has killed a bunyip.
Forty years earlier, Leon, the son of two Jewish immigrants who moved to Australia to escape the horrors of World War II, helps his father, Roman Collard, in the family bakery in Sydney. Roman teaches Leon to make delicately detailed sugar sculptures to decorate cakes. As the son of immigrants, Leon faces prejudice at school, although this lessens when his father enlists to fight in the Korean War. Roman sends letters home to Leon and his mother at first, but the letters soon stop, and they learn that Roman has been taken prisoner.
Leon leaves school to run the bakery and begins a relationship with Amy Blackwell, a former classmate. Soon after their relationship becomes serious, Amy’s parents send her to Brisbane for finishing school.
When Roman returns, he is incapable of managing the bakery, and eventually he flees Sydney, looking for a place to live away from the city. Leon’s mother follows Roman and finds him at the shack near Mulaburry. She stays there with him, leaving Leon alone in Sydney with the bakery.
After his parents leave, Leon receives his conscription notice, drafting him to serve in the Vietnam War. He closes the bakery and goes to Vietnam, where he becomes a gunner in a small military unit. Leon takes photographs of the men in his unit, most of whom are eventually killed or have to be evacuated due to illness or injury. He also takes pictures of some of the men he kills.
After returning to Sydney and failing to resume normal life at the bakery, Leon drives out into the desert and runs out of gas. He walks until he collapses, dehydrated, and is found by a group of veterans who live together in a rough community where they can give way to violent impulses without being misunderstood. When one of the men shoots a mother cow for her meat, Leon leaves the community and heads back to Sydney, where he again takes up work at the bakery.
Amy Blackwell returns to Sydney and finds Leon at his bakery, and the two marry. Later, Leon receives news from a lawyer that his parents are dead, having walked into the ocean near their shack.
At the novel’s end, Frank and Leon’s timelines converge, although the two never reunite. Frank takes his family’s sugar figurines to the beach, where he and Sal let them dissolve in the ocean, while Leon brings his bag of Bibles home to his wife, who greets him affectionately.
Bibliography
Byng, Gabriel. Rev. of After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, by Evie Wyld. New Statesman 10 Aug. 2009: 45. Print.
O’Grady, Megan. "Down Under." Rev. of After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, by Evie Wyld. Vogue Sept. 2009: 458. Print.
Restaino, Leann. Rev. of After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, by Evie Wyld. Library Journal 1 Aug. 2009: 75. Print.
Walker, Andrea. "Hoof and Claw and Tooth." Rev of After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, by Evie Wyld. Times Literary Supplement 18 Sept. 2009: 20. Print.
Wyld, Evie. "In Conversation with Evie Wyld, Author of After the Fire, a Still Small Voice." Interview by Sam Ruddock. Writers’ Centre Norwich. Writers’ Centre Norwich, n.d. Web. 23 May 2014.
Wyld, Evie. "Wyldfire: An Interview with Evie Wyld." Interview by Alan Kelly. 3:AM Magazine. 3:AM Magazine, 3 July 2010. Web. 23 May 2014.