Metal Fish, Falling Snow
Shortlist year:
2021
Shortlist category:
Young adult literature
Published by:
Text Publishing
About the book
Dylan and her adored French mother dream of one day sailing across the ocean to France. Paris, Dylan imagines, is a place where her black skin won't make her stand out, a place where she might feel she belongs.
But when she loses her mother in a freak accident, Dylan finds herself on a very different journey: a road trip across outback Australia in the care of her mother's grieving boyfriend, Pat. As they travel through remote towns further and further from the water that Dylan longs for, she and Pat form an unlikely bond. One that will be broken when he leaves her with the family she has never known.
'Metal Fish, Falling Snow' is a warm, funny and highly original portrait of a young girl's search for identity and her struggle to deal with grief. Through families lost and found, this own-voices story celebrates the resilience of the human heart and our need to know who we truly are.
About the author
Cath Moore
Born in Guyana, Cath Moore is of Irish/Afro-Caribbean heritage. Though raised in Australia she has also lived in Scotland and Belgium. Cath is an award-winning screenwriter, teacher and filmmaker. She holds an MA in screenwriting and a PhD in Danish screenwriting practices. 'Metal Fish, Falling Snow' is Cath's first novel. She lives in Melbourne.
Judges’ comments
Dylan is lost. In her own words, she 'could be anywhere'. The child of an Afro Caribbean father and a French mother—the girl who was predicted to be a boy—this fourteen-year-old whirlwind rages against a world which always seems set to move against her with cold, dispassionate certainty. As Dylan battles to understand and negotiate this world, her rage is fuelled by a single question: how can she possibly survive without knowing where and how she belongs?
'Metal Fish, Falling Snow' is a richly metaphoric tale of a character's dualised search: how to come to terms with the loss of her beloved mother and her own role in that loss; and how to interpret and align her mixed heritage identity. The strengths of the novel lie in the protagonist Dylan's fierce and uncompromised voice, and in the originality of the aesthetic. Moore writes with the technical skill and linguistic panache of an author who is in complete control of her material. Her take on the 'road trip' novel is replete with irony, compassion, humour and near-tragedy, and is further distinguished by Dylan's ability to move between the known and unknown worlds, a device that allows Moore to explore the entanglements of other lives more fully.
'Metal Fish, Falling Snow' is concrete and lace, a multi-layered, poetic work which delves hard and often surgically into the hearts of its characters and allows readers significant insight into the interplay of despair and hope that characterises being human.
