Review: We All Lived in Bondi Then
Gaby Meares
I found all these stories exquisite. Blain can communicate such a sense of sadness and melancholy without being sentimental.
Many of these stories are about loss and grief: loss of a parent to alzheimers; the grief that comes with lost opportunities, lost hopes and dreams; loss of the world as we know it.
It is strange how often we long for life to move forward: I just have to get through this, we think, as though the past, with all its fears and fuck-ups and anxieties, can be completely left behind, neat, contained, never spilling over the line we imagine is waiting for us. And yet the past is always there, hovering at the edge, teasing us, reappearing when we least expect it, and then sliding away again, where it waits, the warmth of its breath reminding us that it still lives.In the last story with its titular title, Lucy remembers being twenty three and living in a flat with her boyfriend Henry who announces to their friends that they are getting married. It’s a boozy party and she flirts outrageously with Jimmy. If I sound callous, it’s because I was - or at least that’s how my behaviour would be interpreted now that we’re all in this different land, a land in which we understand the reason behind commitment. But then we were like moths, fluttering blindly towards whatever light flickered brightest. This certainly resonated with me as I look back on my behaviour in my twenties and it makes me cringe. Blain makes me understand that I am not alone, and not a bad person, and that we were just young.
This slender volume of only nine stories is to be treasured, and revisited often to savour their warmth and kindness, as we know there will be no more from this talented writer.