Memoirs Of A Suburban Girl

A RELENTLESS, terrifying account of domestic violence that sees each chapter rain down a fresh round of blows on its young victim.

"YOU want a man, although you don't know what you're in for, and a year or so later as a strong hand grips your hair and smashes your head against a car window, you wish more than anything you hadn't fallen for that man in that disco when you were only 17.''

So begins Memoirs Of A Suburban Girl, a relentless, terrifying account of domestic violence that sees each chapter rain down a fresh round of blows on its young victim and, by extension, the reader.

The story is told by an unnamed narrator, and the Adelaide teenager at the heart of it is never identified. Her older live-in boyfriend, known only as SB, is a classic bully - an unpredictable, moody, philandering loser whose lack of looks, career and personality somehow do little to reduce his attractiveness to the young women he targets.

From the outset he is violent with his new partner, which begs the question as to why she agrees to move in with him in the first instance, but her slide from betrayal to fear to a kind of tortured acceptance is as gradual as it is depressing.

At one point, she finds herself reasoning that all relationships must be like hers - logic that speaks more to her battered self-esteem than a lack of intelligence on her part.

The teenager's growing recognition of her plight - along with her refusal to do anything about it - should alienate readers but the novel is crafted with such care that it's impossible not to be moved by it.

It's clear that the violence has been shaped by Kandelaars' own experiences (and if there were any doubts on the matter, they are put to rest by the epilogue). The outcome will keep you guessing until the final page.

VERDICT: Harrowing but brilliant

Memoirs Of A Suburban Girl, Deb Kandelaars, Wakefield Press, $24.95