Dove by Georgia Harper

Inspired by a viral social media post ‘What would you do if you had a whole day on earth free of men?’ Harper’s psychological thriller explores the male / female dynamics in a small rural town, a microcosm of society as a whole. It’s a town known for the unsolved disappearance of a teenage schoolgirl twenty-nine years earlier. It’s where Dove, the central character, has established an organic flower and vegetable garden on her large property alongside a popular bakery, and where, after a violent encounter with a male neighbour on the other side, she defiantly paints that pointed question on her mudbrick front fence. What she doesn’t anticipate is the outpouring of responses from women revealing the pervading fear of male violence, marked up in pen on the wall.

The chapters alternate the perspectives of the independent and free-spirited Dove; the story of Noah torn between his responsibilities for his wife and family, and his reignited passion for his earlier girlfriend Dove; and diary entries from Bella, his teenage daughter. Noah is an ordinary bloke, a hard-working electrician, hanging out with his mates at the pub, taking his wife for granted, and compartmentalising his burgeoning affair, until the implications of the women’s responses start to penetrate his thinking. Is he the good guy, or is he yet another pent-up explosion about to violently lash out?

Whilst ostensibly a thriller, Harper manages to examines social issues of the 1990’s such as abortion, gender identity, male violence, women’s safety, police response; many feminist issues that still resonate today. Her writing is underpinned by her experience working as a psychologist with violent offenders and victim-survivors of crime. Her novel shows that not much has changed and there will continue to be problems until men also assume responsibility for finding solutions. In some ways, Dove is a guidebook to better relations between the sexes.

Themes: Feminism, Male violence, Toxic masculinity, Assault, Identity.

Helen Eddy