“The Time of the Ghosts” by Gillian Polack: A multilayered story with lots to offer

How does one spend retirement? For some people, the answer lies in quaint gardens and relaxed hobbies – but what if that hobby is ghost hunting? In Jewish Australian writer Gillian Polack’s 6th novel, The Time of the Ghosts (2017), work doesn’t end with retirement. The story follows the three (in several respects) old friends Ann, Mabel and Lil, who spend their evenings tracking down and scolding away the supernatural creatures of Canberra that do not belong and have been imported in the course of colonization and globalization. One day, 15-year-old runaway Kat is taken in by the trio and joins them in their adventures. Evil forces threaten Australia, and only with Kat’s help the trio has a chance to stop them.

But everybody has their ghosts. Each friend struggles with their own: Ann, who has just retired and who is nearing an ugly divorce, struggles to find her purpose and thereby becomes an easy target for the evil spirits that haunt Canberra. Mabel, who has trouble letting people in, finds herself in a bizarre love affair that simply cannot have a happy ending. Lil fights with the ghosts of her past, which have caused her to give up on her future a long time ago. Lastly, Kat has seen no other choice than to flee from a home of neglect, and must now try to get back on her feet. Accompanying the story of the four friends are the tales of Melusine: an ancient fairy from Western Europe who tells her life over the centuries in short stories, telling tales of the supernatural, immigration, human tragedy, and secret identities. Melusine must disguise herself as a human and, most of the time, hide her Jewish heritage in order to be able to live among others in peace, but consequently never finds true connection to those around her.

Polack’s novel has a lot to offer to a broad readership; with its heart-warming premise of the grandmas taking in a kid in trouble, it certainly feels empowering to watch Kat slowly heal from her past and from her bad habits. But as may have already become clear, the book runs even deeper than the characters’ friendship: Polack touches on difficult topics such as abuse and neglect, but also on themes connected to Australia and its history, among which are Jewish immigration, colonialism and the consequential import of cultures foreign to the continent, and Australia as a convicts’ colony – the ghosts in The Time of the Ghosts surely are not all just of mythological nature. While one could criticize the fact that these serious topics are mostly lurking beneath the surface of the story and are not discussed extensively, the novel seems not to lay the focus on the issues themselves, but on how those affected manage to deal with the aftermath in their own lives; this could transform the underlying victimhood of those suffering to a form of agency and self-reflection.

The slow burn with which the tales of Melusine develop may seem slow paced and interjected randomly in the beginning, but the more the reader gets to understand their connection to the main story line, the more intriguing and engaging they become, until the reader feels like a proper detective about to solve a puzzle. The story is also full of parallels and doubling-elements for the reader to spot, like the similarities of Kat and Lil’s secret identities (especially considering their relation), their need to flee, and their tendency to process their emotions in the form of writing – Lil in her autobiographies and Kat via her blog. 

But what might be most intriguing is the uncertainty with which Melusine frames her stories: while fairy tales are usually known to be invented, nobody can say for certain with the tales of this fairy. While the experiences described seem to be the real experiences of the character, Melusine herself chooses to cause chaos by suggesting that her stories might not even be true and by mixing up the timelines.

The Time of the Ghosts is a multifaceted love letter to artistic blurring of lines combined with a bitter-sweet story of friendship, loss, identity crises and growth. Despite its dark undertones, the novel offers hope and a much needed happy ending – or does it? 

Jewish-Australianness and Gillian Polack’s ‘Melusine’

Gillian Polack is an important Australian writer and Medievalist who was born and raised in Melbourne. Her heritage and religion have had a great influence on her writing, but not only that – her Jewish-Australianness shows us the importance of representation and diversity in print media.

Polack shows in her writing and in her interviews that the strength and empowerment that came from her Jewish-Australianness should not be underestimated. It shows that bicultural identities should be valued and supported in order to underline the beauty of it. Being part of one culture does not eradicate or diminish the other part of a person and even showcases that a person is not half of anything. They are a whole entity, an entire and complete person that is part of more than one culture and religion. Jewishness does not disregard one’s Australianness, neither does one’s Australianness disregard their Jewishness. On the contrary, transcultural identities enrich the amount of perspectives that come into play and show the diversity of society and represents the state of the world. This is emphasised ever so effortlessly by Polack, for instance in her novel The Time of the Ghosts.

Her protagonist is a fairy named ‘Melusine’, also referred to as Lil (presumably short for Lilith) at times – Melusine’s background derives from the European folklore figure and is described as half woman and half serpent or fish. In The Time of the Ghosts, however, ‘Melusine’ is depicted as a Jewish fairy. This fascinating occurrence of both Melusine’s having more than one identity comes as no surprise once we remind ourselves of Polack’s expertise in Medieval studies. Her writing strikes the audience’s interest especially when you bear in mind that there is a personal nuance and influence on it as well. You can approach this perspective from a biographical point of view by taking Polack’s medievalist background into account and take a closer look at ‘Melusine’, the folklore figure and Polack’s character ‘Melusine’ – the first one is a woman who must hide her true identity as a female spirit of fresh water from her husband and her surrounding and the other one as a fairy who has to hide her Jewish identity as well as her fairy-being in order to protect and shield herself at times.

This depiction in Polack’s The Time of the Ghosts indicates that all the different cultures that a person consists of make them who they are. ‘Melusine’ serves as a great metaphor in this sense and helps people to understand the struggles of growing up in multiple and mixed cultures. The beauty and enrichment it can bring to you once you learn about your cultures and beliefs by getting in contact with them is an important aspect in staying in touch with your culture and familiarising yourself. Learning your language or also trying to connect to your cultures’ cuisines are tools to stay in contact with your heritage, as Polack herself has done through cooking with her Jewish grandmother and trying to learn Yiddish and Hebrew.

The Dance of Chances

It was mere chance and a heavy dose of good luck that made me notice Gillian Polack’s twitter appeal to find more Jewish Australian writers of science fiction and fantasy – as she could only list four so far on her blog, including herself! Being a scholar of Australian Speculative Fiction in Germany in particular, I knew at once that I had to ask her for more information.

I couldn’t have made a better decision.

Gillian was immediately kind enough to offer a meeting via zoom so she could give me some pointers to start with my research into Jewish Australian Speculative Fiction Writing and my first preparations to teach at least some examples in our online class. Not only did this lead my colleague and I to include her novel The Time of the Ghosts in our course on “Blogging Australian Speculative Fiction“ – from whose students you will hear on this blog very soon!

No, we also started planning an extraordinary online event – a conversation between the four Jewish Australian Speculative Fiction writers Gillian had already listed on her blog. Gillian got us in contact with Jack Dann, Jason Franks, and Rivqa Rafael, while we took care of German bureaucracy (forms… lots and lots of forms to fill out).

top part contains four round images of human heads, authors; background is the shape of Australia, surrounded by planetary orbits

And soon enough, a date for the event was finalised (thanks, doodle!) and we were able to start forcing kindly asking our students to register!

On Wednesday, 17th November, at 10am (MEZ), we will meet with Gillian Polack, Jack Dann, Jason Franks, and Rivqa Rafael on WebEx to talk with them about their writing – and of course, we invite anyone who is interested to join us!

If you’d like to attend, please register at: australianprojectnrw@googlemail.com – we’d love to see you there!