The adults around her orchestrate her role in the kidnapping of her newest sister. In the Clearing continues exploring psychological manipulation and its effects, this time on a larger scale.Īmy’s manipulation is immediately clear. Pomare’s debut, the psychological thriller Call Me Evie, won the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel. A charismatic leader, Adrienne preaches that she is the reincarnation of Christ. The leader of the Clearing is Adrienne, who Amy refers to as ‘mother’. Pomare frames the book with an epigraph from Hamilton-Byrne: ‘I love children.’ Led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne in the 1970s and 80s, The Family was accused of imprisoning children and brainwashing them through the use of drugs and physical punishment, as well as forcing them to dress alike and dye their hair blond to better resemble its leader. Where the narrative of The Girls fades into anticlimax, however, Pomare draws Freya’s and Amy’s narratives together masterfully in a series of unpredictable twists propelled forward by ever-mounting tension. Like Emma Cline’s The Girls, a novel loosely based on the Manson Family, In the Clearing takes its inspiration from The Family, an Australian cult. JP Pomare’s second novel is a compelling and startling exploration of family, control and violence. ‘I have seen children clutching handfuls of grass and chewing on it like cattle.’ ‘I have seen my brothers and sisters chasing spiders and eating them,’ Amy says. She lives in the Clearing with her siblings, all nine of them, plus the new arrival, who Amy helped to kidnap from the side of the road. She makes references to her mysterious past, including the loss of her older son and trouble with her ex.Īmy’s life is anything but normal.

She’s spotted a young couple hanging around her property, near the river. Lately Freya’s been on edge, feeling as though someone is watching her.

Unconsciously you are always asking, What would a normal person say or do? You’re doing it with every small lie, every interaction in which you must consult that inner ideal version of yourself before you respond.

You do it when the service station attendant asks how your day is, and you smile and say, Good, thanks, because that’s what’s expected. We all act, I’m just better at it than you. If she appears normal to her neighbours, her yoga students and the other school mums, it’s because she works at it. In a small town in rural Victoria, amid oppressive heat and the threat of bushfire, Freya lives the life of a single mother, raising seven-year-old Billy, teaching yoga, and otherwise keeping to herself. The author of the bestseller Call Me Evie returns with a chilling story inspired by the real-life cult The Family. Tags: Anne Hamilton-Byrne/ JP Pomare/ Ngaio Marsh Award/ The Clearing/ the Family

In the clearing by jp pomare