The Untold

March 17, 2014
Broadly based on the life of Australian “wild woman” Jessie Hickman, Collins’s debut novel ranges widely over the Australian frontier—and into one woman’s dark and damaged heart. It’s 1921, and Jessie’s past may finally be catching up with her: having just given birth to a premature baby and killed her abusive husband, the young horse rustler, former circus performer, and ex-convict is impelled toward distant mountains, where she hopes to find safety, and possibly her lover. That lover, a black man named Jack Brown, has, however, developed an uneasy partnership with a police sergeant who may have his own history with Jessie. The harshness of the human and natural environment, as well as the prevalence of death in the bleak outback setting, is underscored by the narrator; Jessie’s story is told by her dead child, speaking from her grave. “The earth buckles with the stories it holds of all those who have cried and all those who have croaked,” remarks the narrator, and, indeed, Collins’s poetic language and salty dialogue tell the story of a woman whose life is inextricable from the bleak landscape she not only traverses but also inhabits.

May 1, 2014
The dead have tales to tell, if only we could hear them. Debut novelist Collins bases her story on the legendary Australian outlaw Jessie Hickman. Born to a coldhearted mother and a loving father who died too soon, Jessie finds herself sold to a traveling circus at age 12. After her closest friend and fellow tightrope walker takes a terrible fall, she leaves the circus for a career in horse rustling, which lands her in prison; eventually, she's given a choice between languishing in jail or breaking horses for Fitz Henry. Of course, in 1917, a female convict is at the mercy of her employer, who is also her legal guardian, and Fitz quickly blackmails her into a brutal marriage. Pregnancy gives Jessie the courage to violently defy her husband, but the battle costs her the baby, as well. On the lam, she's pursued by men seeking rewards and legal retribution. Two of her pursuers-Jack Brown, Fitz's former drover, and Barlow, the new police officer who's already fighting some demons of his own-appear like Furies, seeking vindication, vengeance and something more. Curiously, the novel is narrated by Jessie's dead child. This choice certainly emphasizes the land, which becomes a character in its own right, binding its inhabitants together in shared tribulations, challenging Jessie, Jack and Barlow at every turn. Too often, though, the narrative premise seems forced, unnecessarily drawing attention to the fantastic ability of the undead to know a past it never lived. Prefacing the tale with a brief account of one of Harry Houdini's escapes also seems strained; Jessie's horse may be named for the magician, but the allusion rather heavy-handedly foreshadows Jessie's fate.Collins richly evokes a heartbreaking emotional terrain, setting it against the sparse, brutal landscape of the Australian Outback.

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April 15, 2014
This moving debut novel was inspired by the life of Australian Elizabeth Jessie Hickman, a runaway convict born in 1820. In Collins' poetically reimagined tribute, 22-year-old Jessie is on the run after killing her brutal husband. She has recently given birth to a stillborn child whose spirit is somehow tethered to her mother and who narrates the story. Jessie has already lived a dramatic life; she once worked as a circus acrobat and then as a horse rustler but is now desperate to escape the posse of men who want to hang her for murder. While she runs, she thinks of her short, sweet relationship with the Aboriginal stockman Jack Brown, whose gentle ways were a welcome relief from the beatings administered by her drunken husband. She finds an idyllic camp in the mountains made up of desperate boys who steal horses and thinks she might finally have found a refuge, but the lawmen are not far behind. This intense read, with dark undertones of death and foreboding, contains breathtaking descriptions of the Australian bush and a lyrical homage to Jessie's desperate quest for freedom.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

Starred review from April 1, 2014

Collins's gripping debut novel is based on a legendary wild woman who roamed a rugged valley in 1920s Australia. On the run after murdering her abusive husband, Fitz, 26-year-old Jessie delivers her baby in the woods and, without waiting for death to claim her frail infant, buries her and continues her flight. From the grave, the baby becomes the narrator of her mother's story. After serving two years for horse stealing, Jessie had gone to work as a horse wrangler for Fitzgerald Henry. He brutally mistreats her, so she defies him in the only way she can. Once Jessie is on the run, her ally and lover, Jack Brown, Fitz's aboriginal stockman, sees it as a sign that she is alive and well when a rancher reports 100 head of cattle missing. Jack seeks help from an unreliable local policeman, and together they set off to find Jessie before an outlaw band can get to her for the reward. VERDICT A fast-paced, heart-wrenching story that never loses speed, this extraordinary first novel is not to be missed. [See Prepub Alert, 11/22/13.]--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2013

Collins's debut offers a fictionalized account of real-life Jessie Hickman, a female bushranger and outlaw in 1920s Australia whose story as presented here ranges from the circus life to horse-stealing to imprisonment to forced marriage to fiery escape and endless pursuit, all told in extraordinary, toughly lyrical language. A female Cormac McCarthy? Get it.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.