Book Review: Misconceptions
Sophie Townsend’s Australian Novel About Relationships
Sophie Townsend's debut novel is a moving reflection on love, grief and friendship.
Set in Sydney and the Australian outback, Misconceptions (Bantam, 2008) is an exploration of relationships and the emotions that women and men experience when they lose someone they love.
Plot Overview
Ruth and Mim have been friends for over twenty years. Mim was instrumental in helping Ruth come to terms with the loss of her mother in a car accident at the age of twelve, and the two have been helping each other through the ups and downs of life ever since. Mim even lives with Ruth and her partner Simon, after ending a long term relationship of her own.
At the beginning of the novel, we learn that Ruth is pregnant, after she and Simon have been unsuccessfully trying to have a baby for two years. This has an immediate effect on Ruth’s relationship with Mim, as Simon, increasingly frustrated at being an outsider to their friendship, no longer wants Mim living with them. Mim is unhappy about her own life’s lack of direction and this, in conjunction with the heartbreaking death of a client at work, causes her to flee Sydney for her mother’s hometown of Broken Hill, an isolated mining town in western New South Wales.
Ruth meanwhile is not having an easy pregnancy, and she and Simon eventually have to face the devastating loss of their child and the subsequent strain this puts on their relationship. Ruth again turns to Mim for comfort, but Mim is facing difficult choices of her own and is unable to offer support to her friend.
The Effects of Grief on a Relationship
While the demise of Mim and Ruth’s friendship is the main thread of the novel, connecting the stories of the two central characters, it is the relationship between Simon and Ruth that is particularly significant. Townsend explores the emotions felt by expectant mothers and fathers. Ruth is completely engrossed in her pregnancy, whereas Simon is once again an outsider. This is only magnified when they experience the loss of their child. Simon is left to feel as though his own intense grief must take a backseat to that of his partner.
The scenes describing the loss of Ruth and Simon’s child are incredibly emotional, and Townsend handles the subject with sensitivity. Some readers may find this part of the novel very confronting, but while Misconceptions deals with such a heartbreaking subject, it never becomes maudlin and is still ultimately a hopeful story.
In addition to Misconceptions, Sophie Townsend has written two plays for ABC Radio – Embryonics and Blisters, as well as a two-woman show Loss and Gloss. She is the daughter of well-known Australian author Helen Townsend.
