Originally published in 3000Melbourne magazine.
Simmering darkly with unspoken traumas and longings, Steeplechase is a compelling novel about the tremulous bond between sisters. The first non-erotic work from Brisbane writer Krissy Kneen, following on from the memoir Affection and short story collection Triptych, this is a stirring Australian Gothic where the tangled threads of art, desire and madness are sensually, unsettlingly evoked.
Bec Reich is 40 years old. A painter and a university art lecturer, she masks her loneliness with a cold sense of reserve and an obsessive devotion to her work. Against her judgment, she is slipping into an affair with one of her students, a talented 23 year old enamored both with her and with the legend of her sister Emily – a captivating figure of the Australian contemporary art scene now living in Beijing.
Brilliant, dangerous Emily – famous for her nightmarish paintings, her beguiling use of light, and her schizophrenia – is as passionate and erratic as Bec is withdrawn. A “terrible thing” from their childhood has created a schism between the sisters, and they have been estranged for over 20 years. Now, as Bec lies in bed recovering from a gall bladder operation, Emily calls, inviting her to visit her in Beijing for the opening of her latest art show.
As the narrative slips back and forth in time, Bec is drawn back into memories long smothered of her childhood with Emily. Growing up on a sprawling, windswept property in rural Brisbane with only their grandmother – a tough and wiry “nugget of a woman” – and their mute, mentally ill mother for company, the girls are locked in a claustrophobic bond. The gloomy wildness of the Australian landscape is richly rendered – the dry creek bed, the “flat scrubby paddocks stretching away over the hill”, the pale golden glow of the trees being stripped away as the sun sets. This provides the perfect backdrop for the dark, imaginary world of Emily’s games and delusions as she slowly slips further and further away from reality.
Kneen vividly captures the anxiety of fifteen-year-old Bec, despairing at being left behind while Emily is “taken” by schizophrenia. “All our hard-earned intimacy is stripped away,” she writes. “She whispers to herself when before she might have whispered to me. She plays games with the wind and the tall grasses by the gate but when I try to drag her to play one of our own games she stands and stares as if the real world is just an echo of something, a trick of the light.” It is a disorienting experience that is recreated decades later in Beijing, as Bec struggles to keep up with her sister’s wildly fluctuating moods and the same disturbing hallucinations.
The past and present continue to collide paths as the novel hurtles towards a visceral, unforgettable climax. There is catharsis, and moments of strange tenderness that bring relief from the chilling atmosphere of much of the novel. This blend of the warm and sensual with the dark and disturbing makes Steeplechase an impressive first novel, with clear, precise prose and expert pacing that will have you captivated from start to finish.