It's the rare author who manages to switch between genres, going from witches and wizards to the everyday dilemmas of a modern family. Most find the genre in which they're most comfortable and stick to it, carefully staking out a path and wearing it down until it's a well-beaten track. But some authors manage to master multiple forms, one of my favorite examples being Australian young adult author Melina Marchetta.
Marchetta started out writing heart-breakingly real YA contemporary novels set in modern-day Australia. Of these, I recommend starting with “Saving Francesca" (2003), one of those quiet books that slowly builds up until it stuns you with its emotional power. According to the book's blurb on Amazon, Francesca Spinelli tries to navigate her transfer to St. Sebastian's, a formerly boys-only prep school that likes to "think the building of a girls' bathroom makes them coed," where the only other girls are a rabble-rousing feminist, an irrepressible flirt and an accordion player. She can't seem to stop running into the infuriating Will Trumbull, she's not entirely sure what kind of person she wants to be, and then her mother sinks into a deep depression. Marchetta effortlessly weaves together family issues, growing friendships, and romance and does it all with a cast of characters that are incredibly true to life. These are real teenagers, flaws and all, and they spring to vivid, imperfect, marvelous life on the page as we see them through Francesca's eyes. At first glance, “Saving Francesca” might seem to tell a story that we've heard a hundred times before, but in the hands of a skilled writer like Marchetta, it seems like one that's entirely new.
If you fall in love with the cast of characters in “Saving Francesca," there's “The Piper's Son" (2010), a companion novel about Thomas Mackee, the clown of the group of friends, five years later after his family has fallen apart from the inside out. It's a subtle, heart-wrenching novel that captures everything from the uncertainty of your twenties to the heartbreak that can come later in life and that doesn't always let you like its characters but always lets you want them to be happy. Best of all, “The Piper's Son” also features a male voice and a male lead character that actually ring true.
Of course, Marchetta isn't just capable of writing fabulous contemporary novels. She has also written the Lumatere Chronicles, an epic fantasy series. They begin with “Finnikin of the Rock" (2008) which follows the titular Finnikin, once the son of the captain of the guard and now a wanderer who hasn't seen his homeland for ten years since a terrible curse fell upon it. When a mysterious novice appears claiming that the heir to the throne is still alive, he suddenly has something to hope for again — and something to fear. The Lumatere Chronicles combines a richly detailed fantasy world with characters that are just as richly detailed, each book told from a different point of view and adding new and equally memorable characters to its cast. If you're a fantasy fan, or even just a fan of good writing, they're a must read, as is everything from this immensely talented, unique writer.
The ABC's of Literature: Melina Marchetta
