The new genre of ecological fiction is growing along with increasing concern about the environment and the earth’s future.

Erin Hortle uses octopi and mutton birds to explore human beings’ ethical relationships with animals and each other. When Lucy, the narrator, has recently had a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction. Her husband, Jem, an ecological warrior, is supportive but flippant, which irritates Erin. She is trying to come to terms with the massive change in her body but his words repel rather than comfort.

Lucy befriends an older woman, Flo, whose son Harry returns home. The trio, on a drunken whim, decide to go mutton birding which involves killing birds. Lucy doesn’t tell Jem about the plan as she knows it is anathema to him. It is another wedge between them.

Lucy tries to save an octopus from an oncoming car, the aftermath of which speeds up her questioning of what she wants out of life. The tension culminates in a devastating climax.

This unique novel explores fundamental questions about how human beings co-exist with animals and each other. Erin Hortle examines philosophical questions in an entertaining and beautifully written way.

The setting is Tasmania’s Tasman Peninsula, which is as much a character in the book as the humans and animals. The sea is home to the octopi and seal characters but it is also a cleanser: “All I wanted was to get home and go for a bodysurf to let the salt and sand scour the day from my skin.”

Erin Hortle’s debut novel is an earnest appeal for us to look at ourselves and our world. It made me think about how we treat each other and animals that have more intelligence and feelings that we ever realised.

The Octopus and I is a most interesting debut from Tasmanian author Erin Hortle. It has an original premise: a young woman struggling with her body image after radical surgery for cancer forms a semi-symbiotic relationship with an octopus...

Yes, it sounds bizarre, and the opening chapter narrated by an octopus is a risky introduction which at six pages tested my patience, but the next chapter morphs into the cruel reality of the young woman unsure of her sexual identity or even who she is. Lucy's preoccupation is mostly with her breasts and the scarring because they are visible, but she also has to deal with the surgery for ovarian cancer too because now she can't ever have children. And although she is modern young woman with a postmodern education and a career in Tasmania's eco-industry, her grief at losing so much is testing her relationship with Jem, who has lovingly supported her through it all—but just doesn't understand.

Jem is an abalone fisherman, but paradoxically also a fierce eco-warrior. He despises recreational fishermen and their excesses, he is contemptuous about Tasmania's aquaculture industry, and he doesn't hide his disdain from other people in the community who breach his eco-standards. In the context of Lucy's loss, he is sanguine about not having children, because he thinks the planet can't afford them. He does not understand that Lucy wanted the decision not to have children to be her decision, not a decision made for her by the disease.

For him, the trouble between them is about her breasts.

Some of my friends have had breast cancer. Some have survived and thrived, one was permanently disabled by radical surgery which severed the nerves in her arm, one is currently facing up to a recurrence of it after years of remission, and one has died of it. But although there have been great medical advances and improvements in survival rates, breast cancer is still a cruel disease which often robs a woman of her body image and impacts on her sexual relationships thereafter. Breast cancer is not an event that ends with 'closure'; it is an ongoing physical and emotional journey. The empathy with which Erin Hortle writes about this is not merely sensitive, it is educative as well.

Lucy's first impulse is to have reconstructive surgery, and she opts for what she anticipates will be 'better' than before. Jem, who can't help himself, likes her bigger breasts, and other men admire them too. She hates them. And when a road accident lands her back in hospital, she is glad to have what's left of them removed. Her therapist doesn't understand this, and neither does Jem. He's not at all keen when she decides to have her flat chest and its scars tattooed with the octopus she was trying to save. But Jem is not a brute: the novel wrestles with his nostalgia for the Lucy he fell in love with, and it's not just her body that he misses. He is struggling with grief and loss too, because along with the changes in her personality, she is also shutting him out. She is too distressed to negotiate a troubled relationship on top of everything else. And he just can't get it right.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/05/01/the-octopus-and-i-by-erin-hortle/ ( )