IThe year is 2049 and Daniel Connelly is 75 years old. Cynical and lonely after decades of self-imposed isolation, his existence is “Spartan”, a “relentless search, a longing for the pieces that fit together to form a new whole”. He spends his days making sculptures from broken pottery; Pieces of his life.
During a warm winter day, Daniel goes outside and finds that the longan tree in his garden has fallen during a storm. This tree was a kind of heirloom – a family symbol of home and belonging for the generations before him.
Mirandi Rivo’s A Short History of Longans is not, in the simplest sense, the story of Daniel. Indeed, as the title suggests, this is a multi-generational story of how the longan tree came to be. HereAt this particular time. The book begins with a fictional biography: Ah Yang, a Chinese Australian bushranger who was active in Queanbeyan in the 1850s. The family that comes out from under him ends up with Daniel. So what happened to the intervening centuries? How is Ah Yang connected to Daniel and the longan tree?
As Longan dies, an extremely complex network of relationships and stories unravels. The roots that have brought Daniel here become visible.
Like most of Rivo’s previous works, including her Stella Award-shortlisted and Queensland Literary Award-winning novel Stone Sky Gold Mountain, A Short History of Longans is historical fiction, although some sections reach into the near future. It is told primarily from the perspective of four characters over 200 years: Daniel in 2049; His aunt Wendy, suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s in the early 2000s; his aunt Ruby, a Chinese Australian film actor who struggled to break into Hollywood in the 1950s; and her great-grandmother Maria, the unlikely matriarch, whose story spans from the 1850s to the mid-20th century. Particular attention is paid to Chinese Australian experiences throughout the period, and the nuances of race, gender and immigration are explored as each family member negotiates belonging and assimilation in different ways.
Initially, the book appears as if it will unfold across four seasonal activities – winter with Daniel, autumn with Wendy, summer with Ruby, spring with Maria. But then the structure starts to open up, loosen up and get faster. In the 1900s, minor characters come into focus briefly before disappearing again; Marriage, children, and relationships continue to grow until the family tree – initially a static diagram – becomes a living organism. Although these characters live in different times and places, we soon begin to see how they are drawn from the same heritage and how each of them, in turn, shapes the next.
Many of the characters in Rivo are in their mid to late life and are still undergoing change. It’s refreshing to encounter a novel with such a central interest in the constantly changing lives of older people and one so resistant to youthful self-discovery. As Wendy forgets her life, she feels “the shrinking fragments of time bearing down on her”. “Where does the time go?” she asks herself. We begin to see that there are some things – shame, regret, unhappiness – that she is actively choosing to leave behind.
The novel is concerned with memory and storytelling; Which we cannot remember and which we try to forget. Although they work hard to “bury the hard facts surrounding the true case”, it becomes clear that each member of the family is carrying their own pain and embarrassment that they should never have had to bear. Maria tells her granddaughter, “The shame you talk about is fake, my love.” “Created by something mean and unimaginative.”
This work is particularly excellent in exploring intergenerational memory. Gábor Máté writes of family histories of trauma as “stories within stories, stories unfolding over time.” Rivo has portrayed this broadcast with such sensitivity that it brought me to tears several times.
A Brief History of Longans is about 300 pages, but I finished it in a single sitting. Rivo’s dense descriptive prose makes for captivating reading. Even when his sentences sometimes become excessively long and stylized, his command of language and image is undeniable. Some sections seem simplistic – for example, Ruby’s experiences as an Oriental expert and actor – but Rivo’s ability to inhabit the minds of his characters makes even these moments entertaining.
At the heart of this work is a deep sense of connection and continuity. But there is also deep pain, loneliness and misunderstanding. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that these things must necessarily sit side by side.
Like Daniel’s sculptures, A Short History of Longans is assembled from fragments; Memories that transcend time and space, each with its own edge. By bringing them together, Rivo creates a family portrait that makes two centuries of imagined history feel as if it was lived.
