The Hero: A Story of Family and Belonging

Australian writer Le Nay's debut novel is a subtle, touching coming-of-age story about a young girl at the dawn of the century who gradually realizes the true facts of her parents' lives. When their mother dies, Nonie Field and her five younger siblings are esentially orphaned. The family is split up, with the children not reunited until three years later when their hard-working spinster aunt, Ruth Field, locates them all and moves them from Melbourne to the Australian countryside. Nonie, full of questions she doesn't know how to ask, is jealous of the easy acceptance she believes her sisters and brothers receive from their new extended family, which includes Hannibal, an Aborigine, and their adult neighbors, the Haggertys. Nonie's been told that her mother died of pneumonia and that her father can't be located because he is on active service with the Australian troops in WWI. Emotionally removed and quiet, a watchful Nonie eavesdrops on conversations, trying to put together the puzzle of what really happened to her parents. Another puzzle concerns Hannibal's relation to the Field family; he's lived with the Fields all his life, while his father and brother stay on the Aborigine reserve. Reticent though the Fields and Haggertys are, Nonie eventually finds the answers she's struggled to discover, in the process also gaining the love and security denied her even before her mother's death. Le Nay's gently observant voice reflects Nonie's confusion and longing with deft skill. The understated denouement avoids sentimentality while providing a satisfying close to an appealing story. (May)