{"id":2103,"date":"2019-10-03T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T02:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=2103"},"modified":"2020-01-10T00:00:31","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T13:00:31","slug":"book-review-the-nowhere-child-christian-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=2103","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Nowhere Child \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Christian White"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Another Australian crime debut, The Nowhere Child <\/em>sees Christian White spreading his intrigue across two continents: Australia and North America. The small town this time around is in Kentucky, which is already a point of difference; Nowhere Child <\/em>is a mildly intriguing piece that makes up in craft what it lacks in event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Melbourne based photographer Kimberley Leamy is confronted by a man from Manson, Kentucky, who is convinced that she is his sister, abducted 26 years ago. Kimberley follows her alleged brother to Manson to discover what happened to Sammy Went, as the narrative takes the reader into the past in alternating chapters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nowhere Child <\/em>is the sort of novel that putters along agreeably, until you realise that not a lot has happened and that you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have that many pages left. White dovetails his storylines nicely for his reveals and sails the book to its ending, where things are neat without being convenient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The<\/em> Nowhere Child <\/em>isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly thrilling, but White does well at building his cast and explaining the makeup of the societies that they bestride. The Went family is a heterogenous tribe and their motivations vary, while Kimberley is more curious than passive, a must in a novel where the narrator herself is the mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blurb mentions White\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s world building debt to Stephen King \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and Pet Sematary <\/em>is name checked on the very first page \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but White doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really have the capsule biography style that King brings to his small towns. This is not a weakness, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not an apt point of comparison. White thanks King\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s On Writing <\/em>in his acknowledgements, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no detectable debt here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christian White, far from his days editing pornography (a notable occupation, as it is there he met his wife), has pushed out a quietly confident crime novel. The Nowhere Child<\/em> lacks a lot of the ingredients specific to the Australian moment, but it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t miss them. The Nowhere Child<\/em> is, like the titular girl, its own thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured image adapted from <\/em>this article<\/em><\/a> about a church that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not allowed to be converted into a brothel.<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another Australian crime debut, The Nowhere Child sees Christian White spreading his intrigue across two continents: Australia and North America. The small town this time around is in Kentucky, which is already a point of difference; Nowhere Child is a mildly intriguing piece that makes up in craft what it lacks in event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","has_thumb"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/keep\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/nowhere-child-banner.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1HLZ6-xV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2106,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103\/revisions\/2106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}