Hydra
Reviewed By Ian Banks October 19, 2022
Author Adriane Howell
Distributor: Transit Lounge
ISBN: 978-1-925760-98-9
Publisher: Transit Lounge
Release Date: August 2022
Website: https://transitlounge.com.au
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Adriane Howell, has out of a diverse collection of bit and pieces, crafted a novel that is bordering on the verge of experimental, with a character, who while likable, has not been set in the colourful canvas of Hydra and Crete, Johannesburg and Melbourne.
During her time spent on Hydra and Crete, Howell became aware of many campfire tales told over and again around the countries she visited; always slightly different but with a startling similarity. Little gems of information were being stored away, eventually forming as a desire to be told as a story resulting in the cutting edge Hydra; slight eerie, definitely surreal and one that touches on the reality that does exist on many varying planes within our world.
Anja is a character familiar to many. She is driven, ambitious and focused on her work, that of an Antiquarian with a passionate involvement with mid-century furniture. Her career trajectory becomes completely disrupted due to an accident involving a client. She is forced to step back, to reassess her life and what or where she thinks she is heading.
Impulsively she takes a 100 year lease on a remote cottage located behind the fence of a Naval base on the Mornington Peninsula; she believes this will give her a fresh start. But all is not as it seems with the Cottage as she feels she is being watched and not in a friendly manner. But who or what is it, ghost, ghoul or human?
Told in the first person, Anja allows a look into the inner workings of her mind as she struggles to retain some sense of normalcy in a world that has suddenly changed dramatically. You have become her new best friend and she considers that you are the one she needs to talk to, to help her understand what is happening in her now, very small, very remote world.
What begins as a slightly bizarre storyline slowly and skilfully morphs into to something far sneakier than first portrayed as worlds collide, boundaries merge and the truth, whatever that may be, becomes ever more sinister? Or does it. Who is to say.
Hydra is an intellectual work that challenges boundaries, taps into the world of gothic and blends folkloric with reality in a somewhat challenging manner. Interesting but not one for the fainthearted!