Suspense, disquiet, and depth of character – Former Geelong resident holds us in suspense with her debut novel

In July, former Geelong resident Author Adriane Howell released her debut novel, Hydra, brimming with dark suspense, mental disquiet, and black humour.

Ms Howell grew up in Geelong, graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2013 with a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing, before co-founding the literary journal Gargouille and spending time living in Paris and then Johannesburg before settling in Melbourne.

Ms Howell spent three years, between Johannesburg and Melbourne, working on her debut novel Hydra, working in the captivating notions of moral culpability, revenge, memory, and narrative through an all-female lens.

The novel tells the story of a young, ambitious antiquarian, Anja, who finds herself adrift when she is cast out from the world of antiques.

Exploring unreliable first-person narration and monologue, Anja confesses her intimacies and rage to the reader with candour, tenderness, and humour as she stumbles upon a derelict beachside cottage that the neighbouring naval base is offering for a 100-year lease.

In the wildness and solitude, Anja leases the property with the last of her inheritance, only to discover she seems to be sharing the grounds with an unknown presence, human, ghost, or something else.

When writing Ms Howell said she took inspiration from numerous sources, including places she visited, to gallery exhibitions and visuals, to books she was reading.

“I see Hydra then as a collage of concepts and my role as writer is to tie them together in a meaningful manner,” she said.

“My protagonist, Anja, came to me when I was reading the titular characters in Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I relished these fraught, awkward and unpredictable female voices.

“Hydra entwines three narratives. The structure is integral to the crux of the book and its exploration of narration. I’d been reading Nicole Krauss and found her weaving of multiple narratives inspiring especially in Great House where stories loosely brush past each other, though never fully meet.

“My three narratives are set on the same property but each a different decade, so whilst echoes from previous periods linger, there is nothing tangible for the protagonists to grab hold of – much like anything otherworldly or supernatural.”

Ms Howell said she also enjoyed exploring the ‘unreliable narrator’ as a literary device.

“I wanted each narrative styled differently and enjoyed novels that employed epistolary techniques – think Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi – where documentation heightens the sense of realism in what is an otherwise implausible story.

“The juxtaposition between these real and unreal elements is incredibly unnerving.”

Published in early August, the novel has already received much commendation.

Author of Beautiful Revolutionary and The Newcomer, Laura Elizabeth Woollett, describes the novel as ‘a fever dream of a debut, – elegant, savage, and delightfully unhinged’.

“From the treacherous auction houses of Melbourne to the sun-struck islands of Greece, Hydra took me places I never expected to go. Adriane Howell writes with the dreamy precision of Marguerite Duras, the humour-laced disquiet of Patricia Highsmith,” Woollett said.

To purchase a copy or find out more, head to transitlounge.com.au.