Diving, Falling by Kylie Mirmohamadi
“I had noticed that I was swearing more freely since Ken’s death. Perhaps I was taking up the expletive slack that he had left dangling when he had taken his final, wordless, breath. The only breath, apart from the first one, that has no pair, a Buddhist would say.”
I have a confession to make. I didn’t expect to enjoy Diving, Falling (2024, Scribe) as much as I did. The debut novel from Kylie Mirmohamadi is set amongst Melbourne’s elite artistic scene, where Leila Whittaker, long-suffering wife of larger-than-life artist Ken Black, finds herself suddenly free of the burdens of her marriage following Ken’s death. On the surface, the story perhaps seems a little too clear-cut, a little too “told before,” but in Mirmohamadi’s hands, we’re introduced to a new way of exploring one woman’s sense of self outside of the rigid wife-mother constructs assigned to her. A writer and creative herself, we start to see how much Leila has given of herself to her husband and others:
“To write what I wanted and concentrate on it, live in it, where everything else evaporates. But I’ve always found it difficult to tell people who want my time that I need it for writing. Half the problem with women’s work is the presumption, even from ourselves, that we will be perpetually available to everyone around us.”
Split between the active present and reminiscing about the past, her marriage and the upbringing of her two boys with an overbearing father, Leila reexamines the ways being the perfect wife versus the perfect mother has intersected. It’s slowly revealed how Ken could be heavy-handed, violent and discouraging of their sons (despite frequently including them in his art) all in the name of ‘toughening them up’ – something Leila often failed to fully protect them from.
“Ours was not an innocent home, and the boys knew about suicide, anyway – who, with our background, could avoid that knowledge? – but this was too bald, and it originated in anger. Ken never made a distinction between innocence and ignorance. He despised both, even in his own children.”
In the aftermath of Ken’s death, Leila is faced with some complex realities that continue to highlight the ways she’s hidden herself in her marriage to allow for her husband’s careless behaviour. She learns that he has changed his will without her knowing, leaving his longstanding mistress/muse (and close family friend), Anita, a significant amount of money. A photographer, Anita promptly uses the money to host an exhibition of her work showing the ‘real’ side of Ken outside of the picture-perfect family ideal Leila has tried to uphold for most of their marriage.
“I think I stopped breathing for a moment when I saw the accompanying photograph of some scrawled words on a wall: ‘If you want to hide something, put it in plain sight.’ Well, that jig was up, and Anita had managed to suggest there was something wrong with us, with our family, without giving any detail, any acknowledgement of the nuances of the situation.”
Mirmohamadi seamlessly weaves us through Leial’s internal introspection and her outer voice. In other books, I’ve found myself getting frustrated at what a character might think versus what they say, but Mirmohamadi does this so expertly that I always found myself rooting for Leila despite not always agreeing with her approach. As Leila moves further into her life without Ken, his looming shadow shrinks, and she finds herself not only questioning but actively exploring what her life might be without the confines she’s been held by for so long.
“I behaved badly that night. After years, decades of smoothing feathers ruffled by Ken’s total disregard of the sensibility of anybody around him, I drank too much wine on an empty stomach and contradicted everything that Vanessa and Lola said. Everything.”
Questioning what it means to commit to one person and if couples can truly be everything to one another (and whether they should be), Mirmohamadi uses Leila as a thoughtful mouthpiece to explore the double standards between men and women, within and outside the family home.
I don’t want to give too much away, as the joy of this book lies in joining Leila on her journey. Mirmohamadi does a wonderful job of bringing Leila to life and showcasing that women – no matter their age – are fully alive, filled with desire, passion, and deserving of the capacity to make mistakes, explore new paths and find themselves outside of the mother/wife dichotomy. Having read dozens of Australian books told from the perspective of young twenty-somethings in recent years, this was a refreshing and engaging change of perspective.
Fans of Siri Hustvedt, Sigrid Nunez and Rachel Cusk will find much to enjoy in these pages.
Read our interview with Kylie here!
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
