The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott
“Daniel thought about what he knew of rain herons – how in the stories they were associated with rainfall, abundance and harvests, but also with floods and destruction and death.”
The Rain Heron (2020) is the second novel from Australian author Robbie Arnott and is a sharp return to the form he began with in his debut Flames (2018) as he draws our attention to the incredible depths of our natural world. With child-like wonder, creativity, and a roaring imagination, the world that Arnott creates is filled with a magnificent blend of beauty and terror.
I’ll start by saying that Flames was a phenomenal reading experience for me and the promise of The Rain Heron was something I eagerly looked forward to. So, it’s difficult for me now to review this book that wasn’t terrible, but was pretty disappointing.
The book opens with a prelude to events around the discovery of the Rain Heron, a magical bird that can shape-shift into various forms of water. It also seems to have the ability to change the weather within its immediate surroundings. We are told a story of a destitute farmer whose luck turns when the heron decides to grace her land with its presence. Dubbed “Part 0,” this entry into the book reads like an ancient folktale. It is both intriguing and exciting, and contains its own dark moral message we should all pay heed to.
Then the real “story” begins. We are introduced to Ren, a hermit living in the mountains, just barely getting by with make-shift traps and secret trades with a man from the nearby village. She is there having left an unnamed city due to a coup. What this coup is, why it happened, and how long it has been going on for - none of these questions are ever answered. The coup is repeatedly alluded to but we are provided no further information on its relevance to the characters and why they act in the ways they do. Aside from some assumed knowledge that all coups must be bad, we are left to come up with our own assumptions about why the military has taken over most of civilisation.
Soldiers enter Ren’s wilderness home and try to entice her to tell them where the Rain Heron is but Ren insists she doesn’t know what they’re talking about - a flashback proves, however, that she does know its whereabouts. The soldiers destroy her traps, poison her water source, and generally wreak havoc in an attempt to get her to comply, which she eventually does. She leads them to the heron’s home, where they capture the bird - but not without their leader, Lieutenant Harker, and Ren both paying a terrible price.
From here the story jumps around a bit. We are given a backstory for Lieutenant Harker, otherwise known as Zoe, and her upbringing with her Aunt which involved perilously harvesting the ink from large, fantastical, and blood-thirsty squids. The ink is a sought-after, luxury resource that sells well and earns them a good keep in their coastal village. The thing that bothered me here was that this story provides a strong incentive for why Harker as a character would choose not to pursue the Rain Heron. Knowing the trauma that interfering with these magical creatures can reap, I failed to understand why she would accept a mission to capture a heron she knows is likely to prove fatal.
We’re also introduced to Daniel, a medic within the group of soldiers from the mountain, and their journey to deliver the captured heron to a revamped animal sanctuary a few days drive away. Again, there was a failure here to provide a better understanding of the world these characters are inhabiting. They seem to have no technology, and it’s clear that the climate has become extremely erratic, but we’re not told why or how these things have happened. A romantic interest between Daniel and Harker is timidly hinted at and we are brought back to this connection at the end of the book in a way that feels more like tying up a loose end and less about genuine feeling.
As a whole, this just didn’t come together for me. I couldn’t really grasp why anyone was doing anything, because Arnott gives us very little explanation. Harker, so hell-bent on capturing the heron, has no one to report to and no follow-up on the success of her mission. Ultimately, we never discover why anyone wanted the heron in the first place and once caught, no one seems to care. The characters felt plastic and I couldn’t find myself invested in anything they did or that happened to them. This was such a contrast with my reading experience of Flames, where I truly felt emotionally invested in the plight of the characters, and where the scenic, magical nature they travelled through added real depth to their experiences.
There is enjoyment to be found in The Rain Heron if you are able to suspend your disbelief about mythical creatures and overlook the plot holes in the non-mythical events too. While it failed somewhat for me, I know many will love this mix of how wonderful our natural world can be, along with the horrors that it contains when we take it for granted and attempt to control it.
Elaine Mead is a freelance writer and book reviewer, currently residing in Hobart, Tasmania. She is passionate about the ways we can use literature to learn from our experiences to become more authentic versions of ourselves and obsessed with showing you photos of her Dachshund puppy. You can find her online under @wordswithelaine.
