The Last Anniversary -- a quintessentially Australian book

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A quintessentially Australian book.

While reading it I was reminded of other Australian novels I have read, like The Slap, The Glade Within the Grove and The Only Daughter. Of these stories one could say, "only in Australia".

Is this a recommendation?

In a way it is. I think that if you enjoyed any of those books, you will probably also enjoy this one.

I've never been to Australia, so I'm not quite sure what makes me think that all four of them have a uniquely Australian "feel", and I'm rather hoping that some of my friends who have lived in both Australia and South Africa might be able to tell me!

The Last Anniversary is set mostly on an island near Sydney, whose inhabitants are all connected with a single family whose lives were shaped by an event that took place in 1932, when two teenage girls discovered an abandoned baby whose parents had apparently disappeared without a trace. The girls grow up and turn the story into a lucrative business, which involves the "baby", named Enigma, and now grown up, with her children and grandchildren. Tourists visit the island to learn about the ancient mystery, especially on the anniversary of the discovery of the baby and the vanished parents.

One of the original sisters dies and leaves her house to the ex-girlfriend of one of Enigma's grandchildren, Sophie Honeywell, who moves to the island, the first outsider do so without joining the established "family". Her arrival changes both her and "the family".

The story explores marriage, family life, and the meaning for family, relationships within a close community, and with outsiders.

There were a few puzzling anachronisms that looked as though they might be clues to the mystery, and turn up later in the story, but they didn't. 

1. The abandoned house is said to be kept in the condition it was in when the baby was found, in 1932. This includes a half-completed crossword puzzle, with a Bic pen that was being used to write the words. But Bic pens were ballpoints, and ball point pens were only invented after the Second World War. So clearly the pen could not have been used on the crossword in 1932. 

2. The sisters tell of growing up on the island and their care-free lives, but there father had been wounded in the First World War and was never the same, and he wouldn't stand up for God save the Queen. But if that was in the 1930s, when they were growing up, it would have been God save the King.3. They speak of their mother dying in the same period, of pneumonia, and say she needed a dose of antibiotics, but went to hospital too late. But most antibiotics before 1935 were for treating syphilis, not pneumonia.

I thought something might be said about these in relation to the mystery, but it wasn't. 

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