Is the future set like concrete, or a piece of clay we can mould and change? On a remote farm in Queensland, Cassie Shultz feels useless. Her perfect brother Alex has an uncanny ability to predict the weather and the fortunes of the entire family hinge upon his forecasts. However, her own gift for prophecy remains frustratingly obscure. Attempts to help her family usually result in failure. After … After meeting with her new genius neighbour Athena, Cassie thinks she has unlocked the secret of her powers. But as her visions grow more vivid, she learns that the cost of honing her gift may be her sanity.With her family breaking apart, the future hurtles towards Cassie faster than she can comprehend it.
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There is much to love in this novel. The reader is enchanted from the opening scenes, of a very young Cassie playing where she isn’t meant to, under the house; of her encounter with a snake and the nightmare that follows; of her innocent curiosity. “A crackle of excitement pops in her belly. Like Coco-Pops when the milk first goes on.”
Through the early chapters, Cassie soon grows into a teenager, and it is this lonely, rebellious, confused girl eager to belong, who experiments with her own abilities in an attempt to understand them.
Cassandra is laced with evocative descriptions of rural Queensland. Gossow’s characterisations are convincing and her pacing measured. Early suspense shades into a textured exploration of clairvoyance, dreams, trance states and the predictive powers of Tarot, as Cassie tries to get a handle on her own inner powers; her friend, the ever doubtful Athena, egging her on. These moments are convincingly portrayed, never overplayed, each adding another dimension to the fabric of the paranormal. In this fashion, tinges of Jungian psychology and Greek mythology are blended seamlessly into a family drama.
Cassandra rises and flows, rises and flows, the reader held in a deep ocean swell. When the end of the novel is sensed on the horizon, this swell breaks into great waves that eventually deposit the reader on the shore of normality, somewhat transformed by the experience.
A novel with broad appeal, Cassandra is told in well-crafted, elegant prose. The reliance on simile to create a childlike atmosphere works well in my view. Think Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.
Gossow’s literary skills shine in her portrayal of Cassie’s altered states of awareness. It is in these scenes that the author demonstrates much empathy, empathy needed in order to render authentic the inner experiences of the protagonist. In this aspect, I am reminded more of Madeleine Thien’s Booker-shortlisted Do Not Say We Have Nothing than I am Paula Hawkins’ bestselling The Girl on The Train. Through all of the numerous scenes of other-wordly introspection, Kathryn Gossow reveals a fine literary talent.
The reader is gifted a gem of a story in Cassandra. Highly recommended.
She dreams of plane crashes, earthquakes, tsunamis, bloody coups. She dreams of the stallion sweeping down the hill … . P. 197′.
Early on in this book, author Kathryn Gossow had instilled into me as a reader a sense of ‘foreboding’. But like Cassie trying to clarify her visions, I struggled to discern what the feeling of impending doom was about? Would it concern Paulo, or Athena, or a secret in the family, or Cassie herself? The possibilities thicken and darken and thunder down on Cassie’s life like the ominous horse in her nightmares.
Cassandra: A princess of Troy and priestess of Apollo. She was cursed to utter true prophecies but to never be believed.'(Wiki)
Cassie seems like an ordinary girl who gets bitten by a snake on a farm in Queensland. Her little brother predicts a drought, she grows to be a grumpy teenager troubled by visions, she scowls at her mother in the ordinary teenage way, she worries about her great-aunt and her Poppy .. Wait a minute. Bitten by a snake? Visions? Her brother foretells a drought?
‘The Snake: Some versions of the legend have Cassandra falling asleep in a temple, where the snakes licked her ears so that she could hear the future. According some versions, Cassandra had a brother Helenus. Like her, Helenus was always correct whenever he had made his predictions, but he was believed.’ (Wiki)
She clumsily attempts to fit in with the cool kids, she experiments with alcohol and dope, her visions worsen. She tries to make one true friend, Athena, who introduces her to the Tarot. (‘Her thoughts swirl with colour and the patterns and the meanings of the cards’. P. 77). She ‘s keen on a boy named Paulo .. Wait, wait. Athena? And ‘Paulo’ .. or ‘Apollo’? Didn’t Apollo’s priestesses take hallucinogens to enhance their visions?
‘Apollo: Many versions of the myth relate that Cassandra incurred the god Apollo’s wrath by refusing him sex, after promising herself to him in exchange for the power of prophecy.’ (Wiki).
What if you could foresee people’s futures, for instance, that one kid on the school bus will die of bowel cancer, another will briefly shine on the stage but never become famous? A wonderful ability, yes? What if you fill with dread but you cannot make out why. Your visions swirl without a clear meaning. The Thing happens. You feel guilty. If you had warned people, and if they had believed you, surely you could have diverted the accident or illness or mistake from happening. Is this a ‘super-power’ or a curse?
This can be read is a ‘coming of age’ novel in the sense in that it concerns teenage insecurities and self-doubts, the cruel cut and thrust of cliques and friendships, and the tensions within families. But I think you will also soon be reading it, as I did, mindful of the big questions about fate and destiny, and mulling over the extent to which every one of one’s own decisions cuts away previous possibilities and opens up lines of new ones.
This book is an addictive read – once you start, you really have to keep going. Cassie and her future-seeing make for fascinating reading. I found the child and then teenage perspective totally credible, and in fcat it reminded me of my own early years when adults were very annoying and unpredicatble, and the last person you would turn to.
Cassie is fortunate in having her grandfather and great aunt living with her and her family on the farm, because the generation gap allows for more real communication.
Her new and unusual neighbour Athena is a wonderful character, and I would like to know more about her – where she came from, where she went to – and am still wondering at the end of the book. Cassie, her brother Alex, and Athena steal the show for me. Characters I love. Yes, tears were shed … but you need to read it to find out why!
A page-turning, moving exploration of potential, imagination, and how to deal with everything real life throws at you.
Cassandra by Kathryn Gossow is published by Odyssey Books.
The magic of childhood imagination comes to life in this story by Kathryn Gossow. Cassandra is a young girl learning about life, truth, and acceptance as she grows up on her family’s insular farm. Cassandra can also predict the future. Not a bad talent to have though visions are often hazy, open to interpretation, and as we find out, shaped by family secrets. Her younger brother, however, can predict the weather and on a Queensland farm where survival is determined by rainfall or lack thereof, Cassandra’s talent is sidelined.
From the dry dusty landscape around the farmhouse to the snakes in the garden, and the grandparents gently guiding the younger generation, Kathryn Gossow has created a story that will relate to readers through a reminiscence of growing up. Who hasn’t been misunderstood or ignored in favour of a shining sibling, or at least felt that way as a child. The worldview and understanding of a child is narrow and confined to the family unit. It’s no wonder then that Cassandra’s visions of the future are hard for her to put into words.
As she grows, her world expands to include a new neighbour, a girl of similar age and her father. The pair become friends and explore Cassandra’s talent of foretelling in a way that is a help and a hindrance. Visions are expanded upon though meaning is still obscured and with the opening of her mind to accept the visions, she finds that they are less easy to manage, impact on her day-to-day life, and expose her and her family to secrets ripped bare, and an uneasy future.
Kathryn’s descriptions of landscape are spot on and easily transport the reader to the Queensland outback. Her character development is interesting and will carry you from Cassandra’s young childhood to oncoming adulthood. Story will twist and turn, be hazy like Cassandra’s visions, and come clear with sometimes tragic results.
The storytelling here is masterful, woven as it is with the honest, if sometimes faulty, insights of a young child and the feelings of helplessness a young child feels in a world where she has no control or power, and limited understanding of the adult goings-on around her. At the same time, those innocent insights can cut to the bone with their accuracy. Cassandra’s interaction with her visions, the snake, and the Sisters who weave the tapestry of her family’s fate are handled with finesse as is the dive into mental illness and the reactions/fear Cassandra’s visions and behaviour causes the people closest to her.
I could go on and on, but instead, I’ll recommend that you go buy this novel and read it yourself.