3.5★s
Sunbathing is the first novel by Australian author, Isobel Beech. An unnamed daughter, numb with grief after the death of her father, travels from Melbourne to the small rural Italian town of Altino in the Abruzzo, to spend summer weeks with her close friends, Giulia and Fabrizio, soon to be married.

Once there, she occupies her time with everyday chores and activities, finding pleasure in: gardening, cooking, cleaning, washing and sharing meals with her friends. Giulia’s friendship, her quiet support and her steady, undemanding company provide a refuge from her turbulent thoughts and emotions of her grief.

Eventually, she begins to sort herself out mentally, realising she is punishing herself for past words and deeds. She dissects her relationship with her father, and her reaction to what occurred. Can she return home somewhat restored?

She slowly progresses through some stages of grief: her anger “was muddled, always, with guilt and shame and despair and doubt.” From her reading about other suicides, she sees “the way it rippled outwards and all around so that other people, hundreds of them, became caught in the tide, to then carry that anger and sadness around out of loyalty and repentance.”

The story is told in a first-person narrative addressed to the woman’s unnamed father, with chapters alternating between present day and flashbacks. It must take a special effort to write a whole novel without ever naming the protagonist or significant others; it also requires effort to read, to untangle occasional ambiguities, and as a literary device it is somewhat irritating.

While Beech’s descriptive prose is often evocative, the reader may need to be in the right frame of mind, or the right demographic, to find this novel captivating. Male suicide plays a significant part in the story, and the discussion about that in relation to metoo is powerful and topical. Perceptive and heartfelt, a thought-provoking read.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Allen & Unwin.