Victoria Hannan’s - Kokomo
Victoria Hannan is a writer and photographer living in Melbourne. Kokomo, her first novel, was the winner of the 2019 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, and let me just give you a little context.
The Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript over the last decade has seen the likes of Peggy Frew, Graeme Simsin, Maxine Beneba Clark, Jane Harper and Melanie Cheng take out the prize before going on to being some of our most successful and important writers.
As we begin, Mina has lived in London for seven years. She’s got a good job, nice apartment and things are looking pretty good with Jack.
Back home Mina’s mum Elaine hasn’t left the house for eleven years. That’s just the way things have been since Mina’s dad died. Mina’s life is looking pretty good until a call arrives from Melbourne “Mina it’s your mum, she’s left the house”.
Mina returns to Melbourne. To a home unchanged and a woman who is closed off and taciturn; unwilling to share the pain she holds inside. Mina also returns to a world that believes she left it. Friends greet her with joy, but are unwilling to go too far to bridge the gulf that has opened up between them.
In a scene in a karaoke bar, Mina cynically tells her ex-boyfriend Ben that the Kokomo the Beach Boys are singing about isn’t a real place. The Kokomo of the song is an industrial city in the middle of America but the band have crafted a beautiful illusion that allows us to float away to paradise if we simply suspend our disbelief.
Hannan’s Kokomo similarly asks us whether we can live our lives in a fantasy land of our own making. The answer is not so simple as you might assume. We are shown lies propped up by the victims desire to believe and lies that exist only in the hearts and minds of the person being lied to. These comfortable lies that keep us going suddenly loom large when shown across the perspective of a lifetime.
Kokomo shifts perspectives between Mina and Elaine, slowly unravelling their pasts and present. The effect is to complicate seemingly known events and challenge our assumptions of how love, family and trust work, even between people who have shared so much.
The novel is heartbreaking, funny, gross and gorgeous. Hannan dares to show us those moments we’d prefer forgotten and that gives this book enormous heart.
In a time where all our daily comforts are seemingly lost to a brave new world where our actions impact the health of the nation, Kokomo shows us that we must always be willing to stare truth in the face and hold true to ourselves...
