Admit it or not, modern urban
life has stresses that keep piling up on the middle class workers till life
reaches a breaking point. One big, visible indicator of such a situation is
loss of peace and relationships getting vulnerable to the point of breaking
down. Australian author Magdalena Ball explores this issue in her latest novel Black Cow (Bewrite Books, 2012)
through the story of a James and Freya, a married couple living in Sydney and
increasingly feeling the pressure of work and home responsibilities hammering on their marriage and sanity.
While Magdalena
Ball’s earlier novel Sleep beforeEvening was focused more on personal journey of a teenager through the
trials of growing up, Black Cow is
more about a conscious revision of values and improvement of lifestyle by
letting go of the choices – place, work, and living – dragged along for meeting
the demands of urban living, and returning instead to a simpler life in a rural
community where surviving takes different tools and happiness has a more satisfying
meaning.
Perhaps the greatest significance
of this book lies in showing the true nature of success – something that has
been so pervasively confused with and thrust under earning more and keeping
people pleased at the cost of one’s own happiness. Against the rampant consumerism,
the protagonists of the novel decide to try life in sustainable terms, to be
satisfied with what they got. In one of the chapters near the end of the novel,
Freya makes the point expressly – “where you live doesn’t have to determine how
you live.”
Black Cow is a novel which has food for thought for all people
whose lives and relationships are stressed. This book can show them where their
problem lies and how to solve it best.
ISBN:
978-1927086469
