When a horrendous crime has been committed, it affects not only the direct victims, but many others. This may be due to their connection to the perpetrator or to their victims or to some quirk of fate; such a connection may be voluntary or involuntary. In Highway 13, Fiona McFarlane has used this phenomenon in what can only be described as a brilliant set of interlinked stories – stories all connected to the same series of crimes, but not necessarily to each other.
In Highway 13 the criminal is the serial killer of a number of young women. While some details of the crimes emerge, the focus is not so much on the crimes as such, but about their effect on others. While each story could conceivably be read on its own without reference to the serial killing, this is not what happens; rather, while reading these stories, the shadow of the serial killer hovers over your shoulder and invades your consciousness, as if you are being haunted.
An example of this is ‘Hunter on the Highway’, which is about suspicion – the type of suspicion that someone we love or admire has done something totally unacceptable. Why, when we hear of something bad should we, even for a moment, think someone we love may have done it?
While each of the stories is clearly conveyed in the very gifted voice of McFarlane, she deploys a variety of styles throughout. One story is written as a podcast set some years in the future. Another, ‘Democracy Sausage’, is a stream of consciousness set in 1988. Some use more traditional narrative styles, while ‘Fat Suit’ – about an actor reluctantly playing a man 20 years older than he is – is written as a series of short unconnected passages. There is nothing forced about this; each style matches the story being told.
‘Hunter on the Highway’ is set in 1996 and is about a 21-year-old woman hitchhiking in an attempt to snare a killer. She has suspicions about her boyfriend even though he ‘was capable of not eating meat at home because she was a vegetarian … of understanding a surprising amount of Japanese, of talking at length and in detail about American Blues musicians, of introducing himself to any and every dog’.
Read: Book review: The Book of Elsewhere, Keanu Reeves and China Miéville
Highway 13 isn’t a murder story, though it features serial killing. It isn’t a whodunit, although at times the reader may be intrigued as to who has done what. It isn’t a collection of independent short stories, although it could be read as such. It is a series of brilliantly told stories about ordinary people influenced to a greater or lesser degree by outside forces beyond their control – what happened to some unfortunate people on Highway 13. It is also a stark reminder that we are never immune from the actions of others.
Highway 13, Fiona McFarlane
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 9781761067013
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272pp
Publication date: 30 July 2024
RRP: $32.99
