By Christine Yunn-Yu Sun
The Sirens, by Australian author Emilia Hart, is an intriguing story about two sets of sisters.
Lucy is a university student in modern-day Australia, while her estranged sister Jessica is an artist working in Comber Bay in the south coast of New South Wales.
Both have a rare skin condition that impacts negatively on their self-esteem.
After a violent incident on campus, Lucy attempts seeking shelter at Jessica’s place, but finds her missing in suspicious circumstances.
While staying in Comber Bay and searching for clues about Jessica’s life, Lucy unearths various secrets about their shared past – and the trauma that led their paths apart.
In particular, both Lucy and Jessica have increasingly vivid dreams about twin sisters Mary and Eliza, two women transported to Australia from Ireland on a convict ship two hundred years earlier.
Both also find themselves drawn to the mysteries surrounding the disappearances of eight men in Comber Bay.
The story is told alternatively from the perspectives of Lucy, Mary, Jessica’s diary, and later Jessica herself.
The voices and tones, while exquisitely evocative and beautiful, remain relatively identical from one character to the next.
The multiple and occasionally nonlinear storylines further slow the pacing, prompting readers to observe details and reflect on the characters’ experiences.
This deliberate approach helps to immerse readers in each character’s feelings, emotions and memories, encouraging us to delve into those dramatic, meandering events that influence and even determine their decisions and actions.
Doing so requires the author’s stringent control of the imaginable and plausible development of both characters and plots, as well as the ability to substantiate the process with sufficient and believable details.
In this regard, perhaps the story is let down by its attempt to connect female empowerment and self-determination with folklore, to use fantasy elements to provide a (false?) sense of security allowing the female characters to feel protected and their grievances avenged.
Disconcertingly, although various crimes are committed against women throughout the book, none of the perpetrators is punished by law.
Worse, instead of the promised magical protection, the story is bookended by Lucy and Jessica taking matters into their own hands, and one has to wonder whether or not their actions can be condoned.
Meanwhile, on top of her being callously dismissed by the system that is supposed to help her right the wrongs, Lucy’s injustice is practically forgotten as the story shifts its focus to slowly revealing the puzzling link between the two sets of sisters and especially between Lucy and Jessica.
With all that said, to this reviewer, the story shines in its empathetic depiction of the convict women and their plight.
It is their resilience and courage, their mutual support and loyalty, that make them unforgettable characters.
It is the bond they share in adversity – their sisterhood – that sustains them. It shows us that women do not need magic or fantasy to achieve agency, autonomy and self-reliance.
