A New Take on the Coastal Gothic: Karleah Olson’s Thrilling Debut Novel
Launched this month, Karleah Olson’s A Wreck of Seabirds was shortlisted for the Fogarty Literary Award. It was described by the judges as a tightly written, atmospheric novel that captured the depths of human emotion. In this interview she tells us more about her journey to publication.
Why did you choose a coastal setting for a genre that often goes inland?
While researching an honours thesis on Gothic Landscapes, it seemed a missed opportunity to me that the coast doesn’t feature in Australian Gothic fiction as much as inland spaces do. Given the nature of coastal spaces to be wild, emotive and unpredictable, it seemed a perfect setting for the Gothic. There is also an element of the Gothic that relies on taking what is familiar and making it less so, in a way that produces discomfort or a feeling of unease. As a Perth local, there is no landscape more familiar to me than the WA coast, so adding an undercurrent of darkness to that appealed to me.
If ‘disappearance’ / missing people is a trope in Gothic literature, how did you deploy this idea in your work?
The idea of the missing is deployed in a few ways in Wreck. The most apparent examples are the lost siblings of the protagonists: Briony’s missing sister Sarah, and Ren’s brother Sam, who he lost to a drowning accident as a young teenager. Ren has also returned to his small hometown to care for his father, who suffers from dementia. I wanted to explore the concept of missing something or someone that isn’t truly gone, or something that has been lost in a way that offers no sense of closure. So Ren’s father and Briony’s sister represent this idea. They are both a constant presence and absence to the protagonists throughout their story.
What is ‘a wreck of seabirds’? Why does your novel have this title?
A wreck is the collective noun for a group of seabirds. Birds, such as gulls, osprey and crows, are a recurring motif throughout the novel, so referencing the importance of this motif in the title felt fitting. I had written a scene between young Ren and his father that references the term, and it struck me as quite beautiful. ‘Wreck Island’ also became the name of the island featured in Sarah and Aria’s story, so I felt this title tied the storylines together nicely. I had other working titles I considered, but as soon as I settled on this one it felt right.
Can you tell us about the structure of your novel, which is divided into parts rather than chapters? How does the form mimic your intention here?
The idea behind the three sections was that the deeper out to sea you get, the further back in time you are in the story. The Shore is the ‘present day’ storyline where we meet Briony and Ren, The Shallows takes us back two years to when Sarah and Aria first go missing, and The Deep takes us back a decade to Ren’s childhood with his brother Sam. I used short, rather fragmented sections, rather than chapters, to give a sense of movement and almost a layering of time between the narratives, so they unfold at the same time. I wanted it to feel as though you were being pulled in and out of the stories, much like waves meet the shore only to pull back again.
What difference has it made to you to be a Fogarty shortlister?
It has made a huge difference to me. A few years into my PhD journey and after a lot of research, consideration and writing, it was validating to have others see the potential in the manuscript I had spent so much time on. It is also what allowed that manuscript to become a novel with Fremantle Press, fulfilling my childhood dream of being a published writer. The entire experience of being shortlisted, attending the ceremony, and meeting everyone involved was also such a welcoming experience and a lovely introduction into the WA writing community.
What is next for Karleah Olson?
I am less than a month away from wrapping up my PhD journey with Edith Cowan University, and from there it’s graduation, considering a Graduate Diploma next year (I’d love to be a librarian), and writing my second book!
A Wreck of Seabirds is available in all good bookstores and online.
