Told in the first person, from Dylan’s very idiosyncratic perspective, it took a while to adjust and let the story swirl through the text. I keep thinking of Mum, where the boat is, who I can be without her” p86. “ Your heart can’t grow when it’s hurting like that. Dylan blames herself for her mum’s death, and she is travelling towards the Guyanan family associated with her violent father but she courageously tries to make sense of her shifting world and create a new story for herself. Dylan takes with her a tiny metal fish she found while running away from one of her dad’s angry outbursts before he left them forever, and a snow dome containing the Eiffel Tower her mum gave her, along with a photo of Dylan and her mum in happier times. They travel from pub to pub, Pat distributing promotional material for a brewery and gambling away his money on the pokies. Pat and Dylan set out on a road trip away from the town heading towards her father’s family she has never met. We would put her on the autism spectrum but she has the ability to see inside some people’s lives. 14 year old Dylan doesn’t fit in, both for her brown skin and fuzzy hair and the way she sees the world so acutely she has been called “ dumb as a stump, or smart as a stick” or “ a teabag: takes a while for things to filter through” p7.
The outback Australian town of Beyen is far from the sea where Dylan could find a ship to take her mum back to France, but she is buried in the cemetery and Dylan wonders: “ How can I be real without Mum?”p21. Through families lost and found, this own-voices story celebrates the resilience of the human heart and our need to know who we truly are.īuy Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore from Australia's Online Independent Bookstore, BooksDirect.Dylan’s French Mum is dead and now they will never go to Paris together instead, she is left with Pat O’Brien, her mum’s boyfriend who has his own issues. Metal Fish, Falling Snow is a warm, funny and highly original portrait of a young girl's search for identity and her struggle to deal with grief. One that will be broken when he leaves her with the family she has never known. As they travel through remote towns further and further from the water that Dylan longs for, she and Pat form an unlikely bond.
Paris, Dylan imagines, is a place where her black skin won't make her stand out, a place where she might feel she belongs.īut when she loses her mother in a freak accident, Dylan finds herself on a very different journey: a road trip across outback Australia in the care of her mother's grieving boyfriend, Pat. Description - Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Mooreĭylan and her adored French mother dream of one day sailing across the ocean to France.
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