More than 40 years in the making, Australian author Jesse Blackadder's In the Blink of an Eye is a searing yet mesmerizing look at a family in turmoil following the loss of a child. Finn and Bridget Brennan move from Tasmania to New South Wales with their sons, Jarrah and Toby, hoping for a fresh start. Finn's metal sculpture work is tapped for a big show, and he's busy in his studio one morning while Bridget watches Toby. Neither notices the toddler enter the pool area despite the intricate, decorative safety gates Finn designed and installed.
Toby's death sends each Brennan spinning into their separate hells--"We were like the particles after the Big Bang, flying apart, spreading at the speed of light to different points in the universe." Blackadder's insight into disparate suffering stems authentically from her childhood experience; decades ago she wrote a fictional account of her sister's death. Only recently, after becoming an award-winning author of several books for adults and kids, did she feel emotionally prepared to publish it.
The result is a layered, multi-perspective spiral through grief, blame and the raw emotional and relational shifts that come with tragic loss. Bridget needs, but is repelled by her husband; Finn accepts fault to protect his wife; Jarrah is lost in the fragile reshuffling. Blackadder's writing is fluid, beautifully brutal and no-holds-barred in its depiction of trauma and a family whose need for comfort is lost in the fury "soldered onto the foundations" of their beings. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review