Review: The Thompson Gunner by Nick Earls

Set in the very early part of the 21st century The Thompson Gunner tells the story of a comedian whose life starts to unravel when she begins to have recurring nightmares of a masked gunman. Meg is in her late thirties. She moved from Northern Ireland to Australia as a child and as an adult, she has forged a successful career in comedy and is often schmoozed by the media--or at least, often put in embracing situations that promise to raise her profile. It is on a work trip to Perth that things begin to unravel, first a broken tooth, then the recurring nightmare. We also learn that other things in Meg's life are going wrong, in particular her relationship with Murray. Through flashbacks we start to get the impression that all was not as it seemed in her life in Northern Ireland until eventually Meg is forced to confront a grim and unsavoury truth.

This was an interesting and challenging novel. Meg's dilemma and past make for confronting reading, particularly in terms of how easily children can be groomed by adults they are supposed to trust and used for various purposes whether it be sexual or for something else entirely as in Meg's case. The novel was published in 2006 and appears to be set a few years earlier (Meg gives her age as her late thirties. We know that she was eight when she left Northern Ireland in 1972.) At the time, terrorism was a huge fear and the question of how terrorist organisations recruited ordinary people to carry out these abhorrent acts was a hot topic. Author Nick Earls handles this with sensitivity and empathy, though it doesn't always make for easy reading. The depictions of Meg's day to day life in Perth isn't all that interesting and initially did not appear to go anywhere until I realised just how it was linked to her past.

Confronting and compelling. Recommended.

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