Book review: Mila and the Bone Man by Lauren Roche Quentin Wilson

Mila and the Bone Man by Lauren Roche.

Mila and the Bone Man – Lauren Roche (Quentin Wilson, $38)
NC100822mila.JPGReviewed by Louise Ward

We meet Mila in an opening scene in which she is coaxing her meth-addicted mother, Esther, back to some kind of health.

They are in Northland, at the Croatian side of the family's abandoned home, a scene full of crumbling, neglected metaphor blanketed in love and hope.

Family is a comfort and a challenge for Mila, and that is depicted perfectly. They are a close knit crew of five children with loving parents but the author foreshadows tragedy well, keeping the reader alert and engagingly on edge. When it strikes it is no less shocking, and the cracks in the whānau's solidity begin to show.

Mila and Esther have a complicated relationship, and at times our empathy veers between the two. Mila is a child, then a teenager, so her reactions will of course be intense, justified, but potentially warped by the stubbornness of youth. Esther suppresses her demons by self-medicating and this makes her unreliable, unable to give of herself unconditionally, and loose with words she may or may not really mean.

The most beautiful parts of this novel deal with Mila's connection to the land, the forest in which she has grown up and found solace and guidance. She shares a gift with her Aunt Cath, an ability to heal, to sense sickness and the approach of death.

The author was a medical doctor for decades and her interest in respecting the place of rongoā Māori alongside Western medicine is shared by Mila.

The eponymous Bone Man is Tommy with whom Mila has grown up; autistic and fascinated by bones, his articulation of forest skeletons grace many corners of their homes. In his quiet and loving way, Tommy is pivotal to Mila's redemption.

Mila and the Bone Man deals with trauma, guilt and loss, but at the bottom of that Pandora's box is indeed hope, home and healing.