Reviewed by Rod McLary
After the Great Storm is the debut novel from Australian short fiction writer Ann Dombroski and is set in Sydney sometime in the near future – a future in which moral ambiguity seems endemic.
Alice Kaczmarek is the protagonist whose husband David is serving a life sentence accused of orchestrating an accident on Sydney’s new transport system which claimed the lives of seven people. Convinced that David is innocent, Alice is desperate to have him released; but her overwhelming desire to have a baby clouds the question: is he innocent or does Alice’s urgent need for a child mean she will believe anything? Compounding this moral issue facing Alice is her suspicion that a respected colleague may be running a medical scam. And, to add a frisson of horror, T – a young woman who is the subject [or perhaps victim] of a rather bizarre medical experiment – enters Alice’s life and home. The reasons for her presence are unclear but she seems to have a connection with David.
There are a number of strands to the narrative and they are not always successfully woven together. Elements of dystopia, touches of horror and implied violence at various times almost threaten to overwhelm the central plot and it is never made explicit exactly what role T plays in the narrative nor how her story intersects with David’s. Similarly, there are references to new modes of travel – for example, an eEVTOL-taxi; a Slider and an autopod – so the novel is clearly set in the future but the purpose of that is less clear. What these various elements do though is confuse the narrative and cloud the plot. Perhaps, together with the high-rise maximum security prison in which David is incarcerated, they are meant to show that while technology has advanced quite significantly in this ‘brave new’ world, integrity and moral certitude have been left well behind.
But the primary driving force to the story is Alice’s desire to have a child and much of what she does has that as the objective. It is this strand of the narrative which works most successfully and the reader can feel for Alice as she does what she needs to become pregnant.
After the Great Storm does have its moments – as with Alice and her desire to have a child – but other elements are less successful and distract from the key narrative.
Ann Dombroski was born in Wollongong. Her prize-winning short fiction has appeared in literary journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of an Australia Council grant.
After the Great Storm
[2025]
by Ann Dombroski
Transit Lounge Publishing
ISBN: 978 1 923023 27 7
$32.99; 295pp