In Moonland is a captivating portrait of three generations from talented contemporary fiction writer Miles Allinson.
In present-day Melbourne, a man attempts to piece together the mystery of his father’s apparent suicide as his young family slowly implodes. At the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, in 1976, a man searching for salvation must confront his capacity for violence and darkness. And in a not-too-distant future, a young woman travels through a climate-ravaged landscape to visit her estranged father.
Each character in In Moonland is grappling with their own mortality. Spanning the wild idealism of the 70s through to the fragile hope of the future, it is a novel about the struggle for transcendence and the reverberating effects of family bonds. This long-awaited second outing from Miles Allinson both affirms his reputation as one of Australia’s most interesting contemporary fiction writers and urges readers to see their own political and environmental reality in a new light.
Allinson’s first novel, Fever of Animals, won the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards People’s Choice Award, an astounding achievement for a debut novelist. With his second novel, In Moonland, he has once again penned a novel that is filled with the profound, beautiful and sometimes ugly musings on the bonds between parents and children, community, and spirituality. How do they interact with, and even damage, one another?
In Moonland is written in four parts, each with a different narrator. It flows effortlessly between narrators, with gripping prose. It’s not a happy family portrait, but it’s a realistic one, with strained, complicated relationships, and questions that remain unanswered for generations. We first follow Joe’s quest to uncover the truth of his father Vince’s past. Then we are transported to Vince’s otherworldly experiences at the Rajneeshi ashram in India in the 1970s. I recently watched the fascinating docuseries Wild Wild Country, the story of how the Rajneeshi ashram descended into a tyrannical cult. If you enjoyed that, In Moonland is a similarly captivating portrayal of how so many individuals became wholly wrapped up in the cult.
In Moonland also takes a step into a not-so-distant future Australia. Ravaged by harsh weather, invasive technology and government control, Allinson paints a bleak picture of what could be. Despite this, the overwhelming human desire for connection, family, purpose, and love remains the dominant thread.
In Moonland is a short yet utterly fascinating read which I rapidly digested. It’s sure to appeal to lovers of contemporary and literary fiction.
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