Well, the best way to describe this collection of linked short stories would have to be 'Wintonesque' - they're so recognisably written in his voice, and set in the small town Australian milieu which he's made his own. It'd be easy to dismiss his imagery and symbolism as heavy-handed and obvious - 'literature for people who don't read literature' is the slur I might sling, if I were minded to do so - but, when Winton's name comes up (as it often does), I more often find myself arguing the opposite. I feel that his writing is very honest - unadorned without being plain...it's as if he, as a writer, is producing these books and saying 'well, this is what my writing is - take it or leave it', without any attempts to distract or cozen the reader. But simplicity is not always lack of subtlety or craft.
The Turning, then. More bruised, battling types, trying to make a go of things, poised between failure and contingent success (which only ever, in this world, seems to mean 'survival'). It's delicately done, though - the characters emerge and re-emerge as they cycle through the stories in different guises and are seen from different perspectives, and different parts of their individual and collective histories come to light. I'm not intimately familiar with his previous work, but I got the sense that these were maybe a bit less mysterious, less touched by grace, less filled by those minor key redemptive (or maybe 'affirmatory') moments. Good, though - I sat up nearly all night to finish it.
