BOOK REVIEW: ALAN GOLD

Headlong, by Susan Varga. University of Western Australia Press, $29.95

AS the once-rare problems of an ageing population become commonplace, society will have to come to terms with the prospect of more and more people wanting to put an end to the nightmare their lives have become.

Illness, depression and infirmity are not suitable companions to accompany us into our final years after a lifetime of activity.

Today we’re penalising those who assist their loved ones in releasing themselves from their pain by the act of suicide, but a time will have to come when our lawmakers, ethicists and religious leaders come to see assisted suicide as an act of generous tenderness rather than the crime of murder.

These are, perhaps, among the most difficult topics for society to face, but face them we must. To position such arguments within a court of law or the inquisition of a televised debate all too often leads to a simplistic binary view of right and wrong.

But the issues of assisted suicide are far more complex than such dualistic brutality.

Which is why a newly published book by a Jewish-Australian writer might very well be the turning point in the debate, adding a layer of intellectual complexity to temper the raw emotions the subject causes.

By facing these issues through the medium of fiction, we have the advantage of placing one level of distance from the hard edges of the emotions, adding a layer of density, which separates us from the reality.

Susan Varga, one of Australia’s most skilled and stylish writers and thinkers, has done more than produce a brilliant work of fiction in her latest novel, Headlong; she has done us an enormous service by exposing this topic to the sanitising light of reason.

Headlong is a novel, which is written simply and elegantly, but may very well prove discomforting for those of us with elderly parents. But it is an important book, and one which deserves a wide audience.

Tenderly, painstakingly, Varga builds a landscape of heart-wrenching choices. Julia, an elderly woman recently widowed, has lost her desire to go on living, facing her daughter Kati with profoundly unsettling choices.

Onto a finely woven fabric, Varga paints a landscape of thoroughly honest and knowable characters, whose lives are suddenly thrown into turmoil by events over which they have little control until they become transformed into a Gothic horror story of emotions.

The act of planning the death of a beloved mother can even have moments of humour when fiction is in the skilled hands of a writer such as Varga.

Discussing the method her mother will use to kill herself, Kati tells us: “A week later I sit her down and with a cup of tea we talk through the possible scenarios.

As I expected, she will only contemplate pills. ‘No, I couldn’t drown myself. I love swimming too much.’ She turns down the idea of gas as well; too complicated -– and the smell!”

In Headlong, Varga has given us an intimate glimpse into a world we only know from whispers, or the adversarial obscenity of a courtroom.

But as a template for what will increasingly happen in more and more homes, it is a prescient work, which deserves a prominent place on our bookshelves.

Alan Gold is a novelist and literary critic.