Book Review - The Patron Saint of Eels by Gregory Day.

The Patron Saint of Eels is Gregory Day's debut novel.

It is set in the coastal town of Mangowak.

It is a book about eels stuck in a ditch.

The Patron Saint of Eels is Australian bush magical realism. With property developers smashing up the town, tourism sadly blossoming and the locals observing Council workers installing road signs about road signs, the people take to the pub to play pool and drink beers. That mad thrashing sound of the eels stuck in a ditch can't help but be analogous to local lives lived within the insularity of a small town, awaiting liberation - or death.

Grim it seems, but Day takes a look around him and finds nature to be the redemptive motif amongst a seemingly boring, meaningless existence. The characters themselves are, by their linked histories, warm and funny. Day's empathy for his regional dwelling cast really makes you consider this livelihood as one of the few remaining possibilities of a community. A community aware of each others vulnerabilities but all too prepared to overlook, or at least ridicule these shortcomings with outback backslapping and shouts all 'round.

The eels provide a lot of splashing in the early parts of the novel. It's unpleasant thinking about these trapped slimy beasts and Day uses their noise accompaniment to increase the anxiety of the reader and the protagonist alike. It's about here that Day asks you to believe him and he himself, as the story moves from a Country yarn to an International, interstellar leap of faith.

The Patron Saint of Eels wears a beanie, smokes cigarettes and loves chocolate. Fra Ionio takes over the novel as the central storyteller and tells us of his previous 300 or so years of eel handling and how he came to be in Mangowak and address the trapped Eels with basically a song and a prayer.

Whether or not you believe Fra Ionio will determine the success of the book, but I, like Day, am all too happy to open myself to the endless possibilities and sometimes miracles of the natural and imagined World.
An excellent debut with good ears for the sound of rural Australia.

Reviewed by: what

The Patron Saint of Eels is available for loan or reserve at Ingleburn Library.