May

Memories fade but a flame-haired boy remains. May can’t remember where she is or how she got there, but one thing she does know; he’s coming back. The boy. Ned. She has to be ready for him. In Naomi Kruger’s debut novel, it is only by reliving the past that its secrets can be revealed.

In a story that spans five decades, those closest to May revisit the definitive moments of their lives, and in doing so, unintentionally uncover a truth that has haunted May for most of her life. Who was the boy with hair like fire and what happened to him?

For the characters in May, living in the present is almost impossible when the past seems like yesterday and its consequences are far-reaching. Their memories are connected by similar feelings of guilt and regret, and by the growing realisation that they can’t go back. In life, there are no second chances.

A walk through the park reminds Afsana of her estranged family and the things she has sacrificed, a postcard prompts Alex to consider a reality where he travelled the world instead of staying home, Karen attempts to relive a fateful meeting that ended in heartbreak, and Arthur stumbles across a discovery about the woman he once determinedly wooed that makes him an appreciate the present. Years may increase the distance but the past is never very far away, and is easily brought to the surface.

May is a poignant exploration of memory, history and the burden of the past. It is a story that is just as much about the things that stay with us as the things we forget.