Review of The Severed Cord

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Sarah Schmidt
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Review of The Severed Cord

Post by Sarah Schmidt »

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Severed Cord" by Stephen Twartz.]
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4 out of 5 stars
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Jimmy, an Aborigine in Australia in the 20th century, is pulled into the war in Palestine because of a devil’s bargain. His job is to protect Eiric, Joe, and Ted, the sons of his boss, as they all join part of the Light Horse Brigade, a decision their father, Angus O’Sullivan, thinks is foolhardy. Jimmy and the O’Sullivan brothers are irrevocably changed after what they’ve witnessed and partaken in while away from home, changes that make assimilating back into their old lifestyles an impossibility. What connection does Jimmy have with Harry, a man-child in 21st-century West Africa running from commitment and the suffocating presence of a family awaiting his return back home in Australia? The second instalment in a trilogy, The Severed Cord by Stephen Twartz chronicles a tale of duty, love, loss, and redemption.

The only drawback of the story revolved around the mistakes. They were present in large numbers, but a constantly repeating error I saw took the shape of incorrectly joined words and a lack of punctuation around dialogues. These made me think that the book has not undergone professional editing.

The time shifts between the early 20th century and the present day hint at some connection between the leads of the respective times. What this connection is gets revealed in the last third of the book, though readers are led to pinpoint other areas of similarity beyond the obvious. One of these that I particularly enjoyed was the supernatural attachment both Harry and Jimmy demonstrated, prevalent mostly in the latter. He spoke to his mount, Horse, saw things others didn’t, could locate the Emu in the Sky from indigenous legends, and had an inbred understanding of the ways of the Kamilaroi that did not need to be taught.

Harry and Jimmy are two sides of the same coin. Sure, one is an Aboriginal Australian, and the other a European Australian—labelled ‘blackfella’ and ‘whitefella’, respectively, by Jimmy in the book—each existing in a wholly different time, but they both had an innate restlessness to them. Both went in search of some unknown destiny, seeming to find it anywhere else but at home with their families. While I can understand some of Jimmy’s choices and motives, Harry’s own were more difficult to empathize with. He seemed to be a commitment-phobe solving everyone else’s problems but his own. A bit of irony towards the end of the book was that, despite Harry being the more immature, arguably uncaring, one of the two, he was the one who ended up finding the gold at the end of the rainbow, learning from history’s mistakes.

It took some doing for me to get in the groove of the story. I lay that at the feet of the writing and narrative styles. Donning an indirect feel of relaying events, the events were hidden in this abstractly rendered progression. Its attempt to impart a story of profound depth got lost in the lyrical waxing of the prose that was at odds with the clipped, laidback dialogue that used more punctuation and thought than actual words. I think an apt way of describing my reading experience was trying to see an object right in front of you by looking all around it but never directly at it.

I’ve chosen to rate this book four out of five stars. With only one negative, this story managed to pique and retain my interest all the way through to the very end, deserving of such a high rating. The Severed Cord would be perfect for people who enjoy historical fiction novels with events that are mirrored in the present. Readers who prefer sedate, almost laidback narrations might also derive some satisfaction from this novel. Occasional profanity and some sexual content make it suitable for an exclusively mature audience.

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The Severed Cord
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Sonia Osei
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Post by Sonia Osei »

Trying to correct our mistakes will help us get to higher places
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