Kirsty Jagger won the debut Heyman Mentorship award and has now published her debut novel Roseghetto.
Shayla’s working on an assignment for her newspaper when she returns to Westminster Way. She's exploring a new integrated housing development when she is confronted with the ruins of the suburb she grew up in. Shayla grew up in Westminster Way but despite her difficult past she wasn’t prepared to see the street and surrounding suburb leveled in preparation for shiny new homes.
The destruction transports Shayla back to her childhood and how she and her mum had to survive each day together. It also leads Shayla to wonder did she get to where she is today because of these struggles or in spite of them.
I found Roseghetto to be an enormously affecting novel. I should note that while I’m not going to go too deep on all the novel’s plot points, this is a book that deals with violence; domestic and social. It’s a book that takes these topics seriously as problems that reverberate throughout lifetimes.
If you’re thinking of checking out Roseghetto be prepared and if these topics are upsetting for you, know that help is available through organizations like Lifeline on 13 11 14 or https://www.lifeline.org.au/
Roseghetto is searing in its portrayal of Shayla’s young life. We meet Shayla as a toddler and Jagger’s point of view storytelling compels us to understand the world through her young perspective.
Shayla is exposed to the world and becomes something of a moral compass in the story. While we are not always shown the worst of Shayla’s world we are forced to confront it through Shayla’s growing understanding.
In this way the violence and neglect of the men in Shayla’s world is not just a series of terrible acts but subsequent and compounding betrayals of the trust Shayla at first puts in them and then is forced to endure as her mother finds herself with increasingly few options.
It feels like something of a cliche that narratives of domestic violence ask ‘why don’t they just leave’. Through Shayla’s eyes the answer is a world where women have little to no control or have it wrested from them by controlling men. We see duty and love for one’s family serving as both a source of hope and the reason you feel you have to keep going.
The story offers something of a window into another world as Shayla dives deep into stories and books. It’s something of a truism in the Final Draft world that books are doorways to the world and through Shayla we see how important it is to be able to view life outside her own.
I don’t mind saying that Roseghetto got more than a few tears from me as it opened up Shayla’s world. It’s a book well worth your time as it strips back the veneer of daily life to tell a story too often unheard.
Be sure to check out my conversation with Kirsty for Final Draft on the podcast!
